The Long(est) Goodbye

The 1900 Summer Olympics were notable for being rather different from the ones we can expect later this year. For a start the games opened on 14 May and did not finish until 28 October. And then there was the events themselves. We may scoff at events such as Beach Volleyball and BMXing, but back in 1900 we had ballooning, cricket (England beat France), Basque Pelota and my personal favourite the 200m swimming obstacle race (Gold won by Great Britain's Frederick Lane). And there was the shortest Olympic event - the Tug of War - where a combined Danish/Swedish team took Gold from the French in a competition that took 3 minutes 12 seconds from start to finish.

from The Ball is Round http://ift.tt/1NZvjYa