The Olympics are upon us!
By now you will no doubt be huddled around your TV sets, eagerly watching obscure sports that until a couple of days ago you wouldn’t have even given a second thought to, hoping and praying for gold and national pride! But are you not bored of the same old sports, year in, year out? Would you not prefer something.. ohhhh… more oldskool.. more… gentlemanly?
Well you are in luck, after a discussion with some friends of mine today in work, I have found 5 events trialed in the early years of the modern Olympics that I think (if brought back) could really add a more civilized and therefore more enjoyable atmosphere to our Olympics… call it a Gentlemen’s pentathlon if you will.
 Event 1: Town PlanningÂ
 Im not joking, added to the Amsterdam Olympics in 1928 and won by a German called Alfred Hensel for his design of the Nuremberg Stadium. The First Brit to win this physically challenging event was John Hughes (any relation to the singer in my band hmmmm ) in 1932, for a sports and recreation centre, with stadium, for the city of Liverpool. Imagine having live coverage of that now a days… in HD! Would probably still watch it.
Event 2: Long Jump… for Horses?
Added to the 1900 Paris Olympic games (along with a vast variety of other strange events such as Cannon shooting) Horse Long Jumping was, pretty much, what it said on the tin; a long Jump for horses. The first winner being called “Extra-Dry,” ridden by a Belgian called Constant van Langendonck and recording a jump of 6.10M.
Event 3: Firefighting
Again in 1900 . Apparently buildings in Paris were set a blaze and the winning firemen were the ones who doused the flames the fastest. Surprisingly this event didn’t make it to the next Olympics in 1904 but atleast Paris managed to get rid of a good proportion of its slums with a bout of Olympic sponsored arson (ok I don’t know that for sure but it makes sense)
Event 4: Live Pigeon shooting
Back in the day, 1900 (again) they knew how to deal with their ratbird infestations; get the local gentry to shoot at them and the one who shot the most won a medal. The organizers would release pigeons into the arena and the gents would take pot shots at the birds; two misses meant you were eliminated. Which make sense, can’t have a chivalric gent who doesn’t shoot straight. The Winner in 1900 was another Belgian called Leon de Lunden, who managed to bag 21 birds in total. Not surprisingly the playing field looked like a scene from a rather bad gore film with blood, feathers and dead and dying birds all over… nice!
Event 5: Dueling!
 The epitome of gentlemanly pursuits and brought in to the Olympics around 1896. Luckily for the competitors they didn’t use live rounds but wax bullets and sadly this was phased out in 1912. Maybe we could get some of the rapscallion youths of today into this; I’m sure they know how to use firearms…. BLAP BLAP BLAP!
Lots of firearms sports in the early 1900… and they wonder why we had two world wars!
If you are interested in other strange olympic events around the same time then look up: The solo synchronized swim…guh?? Cannon shooting… EPIC! and Po..et..ry?? I guess we could incorporate poetry into our gentlemen’s triathlon, starting with some light fencing, followed by a duel and then ended with a poetic lament about the death of their opponent, hmmm indeed.