Olympics, or Five Ring Circus?
It?s Olympic time, and that means the world's best athletes to competing in classic battles of brawn, speed and agility. Battles like gymnastics, diving, and rowing. Battles like pole vaulting, boxing, and 100m dash. Battles like...table tennis, canoeing, and trampolining? Sure, why not.
Inspired by these oddball Olympic events of 2012, let?s revisit some of the strange sports that got our grandparents cheering- at least for a while. Ridiculously dangerous, ridiculously boring, or just plain ridiculous, these are the sports that time forgot.Auto Polo
If you?ve ever wished that polo went a little easier on the prep-school pedigree and a little heavier on the Nascar-style accidents, you?re in luck. ?Let me present your new favorite sport: autopolo.
Auto polo started to get press in 1902 and peaked in popularity around 1912. It was exactly what it sounds like- a tough-guy polo match that swapped out horses for cars. The game was typically played with two teams, each consisting of a driver and a guy with a mallet riding in a Model T. The drivers veered around in mad pursuit of the ball, while the mallet men leaned out the side to strike at a basketball, attempting to make a goal at the end of the field.
While those rules seem to have been most popular, there were some pretty hardcore variations. A 1903 account from Colorado Springs describes games where the mallet man and the driver were one in the same dude, and at least one 1912 Wichita game involved two extra cars serving as wheeled goalies.
Journalists of the day described the game as?fifty minutes flirting with death? ?and ?dangerous to life and limb.? It does sound crazy dangerous, and game recaps did sometimes include things like cars doing somersaults in mid-air. Still, the players must have been pretty good- if anyone was ever seriously injured or killed, it didn?t make the news.
To be fair, it?s not like kids were playing pick-up games of auto polo in the cul-de-sac. The game was played pretty much exclusively by touring exhibition teams, who toured around to play in front of big crowds of paying spectators. ?People loved it. ?Auto polo is the new game. This is calculated to make football look flat, stale, and unprofitable,? wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1912. Wichita matches reportedly drew thousands of spectators. Matches were held everywhere from Boston to Grand Rapids, and the game even made it to Madison Square Garden in 1912.
So where did it go? The game seems to have dropped off in the 1930?s, and one guy?s 1949 attempt to revive it didn?t make much headway. Between auto repairs and band-aid bills, putting on an exhibition was probably pretty darn expensive. Still, I suspect that the bigger problem was the public?s desire for something even bigger and badder. As early as 1913, accounts were surfacing of sports that would make auto polo look like bumper cars. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported about an auto rodeo, where cowboys rounded up wild steers from behind the wheel. They assured their reading public that the event ?easily discounts auto polo for thrills.? Guess this is how we ended up with the X Games.
Olympic Tug-of-War
If thrills aren't your thing, nothing beats tug-of-war. Before tug-of-war became the official sport of corporate retreats, it was the stuff of Olympic dreams. That?s right: by the second modern Olympics held in 1904, ?the Summer Games were the world?s leading supplier of rope burn.
If you thought your cube mate got competitive, wait til you hear about the 1908 Olympic teams. Things got heated when the ?Liverpool Police Team? (instead of national teams, the Olympics were still rocking rando ?club? entrants) showed up to their tug-of-war match wearing their steel-rimmed uniform boots. The official game rules banned shoes with extra traction, and their American opponents raised a stink. After begrudingly agreeing to give the first round a go, ?they lost embarassingly quickly and went home in a huff. Their complaint got a lot of press, with the New York Times publishing one article with the awesome title ?Liverpool Team Wears Monstrous Shoes That Arouse Ire of Americans Who Kick In Vain.?
Via a letter to a sporting magazine, The Liverpool cops challenged the Yanks to a barefoot re-do. The Americans backed down, responding that ?We know really nothing about tug-of-war...I have nothing to say, at any rate, and there will be no more pulling by us.?
When your most exciting scandals involve footwear and Olympians admit to having no knowledge of how to pull a rope really hard, your sport is probably dead in the water. Tug-of-war made its last Olympic appearance in 1920.
Ice TennisEver wondered what Serena Williams?s triple axle looks like, or how many miles per hour Johnny Weir?s serve is? Hey, neither did I- but our great-great-grandpas would have.
Ice tennis was played by painting a tennis court on, you guessed it, ice. Tennis aces just strapped on some skates, picked up a deadened tennis ball with a bit less bounce than usually desired, and played as usual. While singles matches proved to be asking a bit too much, what with all the skating, tennis players found doubles to be quite doable.
The first match was played in New York City in 1916, and in 1927 it was played as part of a carnival at Madison Square Garden (apparently, booking Madison Square Garden was a lot easier back in the day). Declaring the sport ?far from an experiment,? The New York Times once declared that ?Ice Tennis is Here to Stay.?
Needless to say, it wasn?t. I can only assume that frostbite really slows down your serve.?
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In 1937 London, two guys put on asbestos suits and boxed, while pyrotechnic models of themselves exploded into fireworks alongside them. Why didn?t this sport make it to the modern day? Gosh, who?s to say?
Ten-Seat Bicycling
If you?re thinking of trading in your brakeless fixie for something even less practical and more annoying to the drivers around you, you should look into the Oriten.
The Waltham Manufacturing Company founded a special department to build multi-seat bicycles around 1889. Their standard offerings anged from your basic ?bicycle built for two? to ?septets,? or seven-seaters. For customers with an even bigger bikepool to work, the company took special orders for bikes with up to ten seats.
The ten-seater didn?t have a lot of commercial success, but the company did manufacture at least one for promotional events. Dubbed ?The Oriten,? the beast was 23 feet 9 inches long and weighed 305 pounds. The company exhibited it at public events for a crowd of amused onlookers. So what happened to it?
Maybe Chicago mayor Carter Harrison?s bad experience put the big bike to rest. In 1897, the New York Times informed the world that he tried out the Oriten with friends in a city park. ?Ill luck attended their efforts,? they reported, ?and the Mayor, seated on the second saddle, was precipitated headforemost to the ground.? Yikes.
Pedestrianism
Whip out those Reebok Easytones: it?s time for pedestrianism. The sport, most popular in the late 19th century, was like marathoning in slow-mo. Pedestrians would walk for days with only short breaks, sometimes in an endurance competition against others and sometimes in solo feats of strength. The events were held at tracks (like Madison Square Garden- seriously, again) or just on long stretches of land. In the late 1870?s, the nation was gripped by the sport. ?Pedestrianism is inciting a general furor for walking,? ?a Portland paper declared. Exciting!
?Click through a historical newspaper archive, and you will find thousands of races- seriously, this was a big thing. A 72-year old walker once covered 1300 miles in 32 days. Another guy walked from Boston to NYC in 8 days (sure beats the Greyhound, but it?s a low bar). Thousands of people gathered to cheer on the athletes, and victors could make five digits for winning a single race. ?
However, sometimes things got ugly. A dude attempting to walk from New York to San Francisco in 115 days was interrupted by an attack by some ?rowdies,? thugs hired by bettors who had wagered against him and now looked to foil his success. ?Several broken heads are the result of the attempted outrage,? newspapers reported. ?
Yet another walker in a two-man endurance competition swapped out a replacement for himself during the night. He snuck off and got some sleep, letting everyone think he was still chuggin.? It wasn?t until the substitute confessed that the ruse was discovered. ?The indignation toward [him] is very great,? sighed the New York Herald.
I guess even strolling can go bad. Still, my indignation is very great that this sport no longer exists.?
Olympics 2016?
Works referenced:
?ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.? Outing, an Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Recreation. Apr 1898; 32, 1; ?pg. 108
?Automobile Polo. A New and Exciting Use for the Swift Machines.? Kansas City Star. 07-28-1902; Volume: 22; Issue: 314; Page: 5; Kansas City, Missouri
?Auto Polo the Latest, Played in Witchita, Kan.? Grand Rapids Press, published as The Evening Press, 7-20-1912, page 6.?Automobile Polo. A New and Exciting Use for the Swift Machines.? Kansas City Star. 07-28-1902; Volume: 22; Issue: 314; Page: 5.
?CARNIVAL PROGRAM LISTED.: Variety of Winter Sports Will Be Staged at Madison.? New York Times. Dec 26, 1927; pg. 28 ?CHICAGO MAYOR GETS A FALL.: His Honor Precipitated Head Foremost from a Bicycle.?
New York Times, Oct 8, 1897; pg. 3
?The Game Of Auto Polo, As Played By Experts.? Colorado Springs Gazette. 10-03-1903; Page: 9; Colorado Springs, Colorado.
?First Game of Auto Polo This Afternoon.? Wilkes-Barre Times. 12-02-1912; Page: 17; Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (!).(no headline). Philadelphia Inquirer, 12-03-1912; Volume: 167; Issue: 156; Page: 8; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
?Pedestrianism. Alleged Trickery by McEtrick-He Places a Substitute on the Track during the Night.? ?New York Herald; 06-20-1868; Volume: XXXIII; Issue: 172; Page: 10; New York, New York.?Pedestrianism; New York; San Francisco; Performance.? Oregonian.12-10-1867; Page: 2; Portland, Oregon
?Pedestrianism.? Boston Journal. 08-31-1807; Volume: XXXIV; Issue: 10667; Page: 2, Boston, Massachusetts?Pedestrianism. Weston's Pedestrian Feat.? New York Herald-Tribune. 11-22-1867; Volume: XXVII; Issue: 8306; Page: 5; New York, New York.
?San Angelic Cowboys Pull a Real Thriller Roundup in Autos is Held for Movies.?
Fort Worth Star-Telegram; 11-07-1913; Volume: XXXII; Issue: 296; Page 1, Fort Worth, Texas
?SKATING HAS ALL ASPECTS OF BOOM: Indoor Ice Rinks Have Been Added and Outdoor Ponds Only Await Cold Weather. ICE TENNIS IS IN FAVOR New Winter Pastime Proving Popular -- Figure Skating Has Had Return of Old Following. New York Times. 24 Dec 1916: E9.
?Spotlights on Sport,? Grand Rapids Press. 12-9-1912, page 10
TENNIS ON ICE A SUCCESS.: Five Prominent Players Try Out Winter Version of Court Game. New York Times. ?Dec 20, 1916; pg 10.?Tug-Of-War at the 1908 London Summer Games: Men's Tug-Of-War.? Sports Reference.
http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/1908/TOW/mens-tug-of-war.html ]
Source: http://alistofsurprises.blogspot.com/2012/08/five-ring-circus.html
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