Funny / Olympic Games

Faster, higher, stronger... and funnier!

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Athens 1896

• During a dinner honoring the winners, the Crown Prince of Greece, Constantine I, asked Alfréd Hajós, who won two gold medals in swimming^note One for the 100m freestyle, the other for the 1200m freestyle, where he had learned to swim so well. Hajós answered "In the water."
• When Australian Edwin Flack won the gold medal in running for the 1500m, since Australia was still a British colony at the time, there was no Australian flag, and officials didn't have any of the colonial flags. So at the medal ceremony, they ended up raising the Austrian flag.

Paris 1900

• Spain earned their very first gold, in Basque pelota. That's an awesome feat for sure. What does it make it funny then? Spain was the only country to enter a team (France did enter one too, but was withdrawn shortly before the tournament). They literally won their first gold by doing absolutely nothing.

St. Louis 1904

• The Men's Marathon is a glorious hot mess courtesy of poor officiating and bad luck. The race was ran mostly over dirt roads, with the only "water stop" being a well eleven miles into the race. Officials and team staff had to go along the route by car, kicking up dust in the competitors' faces; William Garcia nearly died from inhaling the dust. Fred Lorz crossed the finish line first, and almost got gold, but officials soon discovered that he had given up the race at mile nine and had been riding in a car for about ten miles before re-joining the race at mile nineteen (because the car broke down), and duly disqualified him for cheating; Lorz's defense was that he was only joking, though the Amateur Athletic Union didn't find it nearly as funny and banned him for life (though he was reinstated the following year). Cuban competitor Andarín Carvajal showed up late, having lost all of his cash and belongings en route^note his route to St. Louis took him through New Orleans, where he was invited into a friendly dice game. Fortunately, he was helped by some guys from the U.S. weightlifting team, who thought of him as kind of a mascot. and having to cut the legs of the pants he was wearing into something approximating shorts; furthermore, while running the course, he picked some apples from a nearby orchard—which turned out to be rotten, assailing him with food poisoning; despite all of that, he finished fourth. Many of the athletes present said that if he'd had proper training and experience, he might very well have won. A couple of runners were chased by dogs along the way. Finally, the winner of this blessed event, Thomas Hicks, had to be carried across the finish line and was strung out on strychnine and brandy^note no rules against performance enhancing drugs at the time, and tiny doses of strychnine were commonly given as a stimulant, given by team staff to pep him up after he almost collapsed during the race. Officials allowed him through because he was still making running motions with his legs while being carried.

Antwerp 1920

• When the Italian team entered the stadium at the opening ceremony, the band couldn't locate the sheet music for the "Marcia Reale" (then the Italian national anthem) because it had not been delivered on time. So, the band played "'O sole mio" instead.

Berlin 1936

• A Squicky one, but nonetheless hilarious at the same time. Thousands of pigeons released during the opening ceremony of the 1936 Olympic Games pooped on much of the audience after being frightened by ceremonial cannon fire.

Sarajevo 1984

• When Torvill and Dean were about to perform their routine to Bolero. They were slightly delayed starting it because they had to first wait for a little girl who was removing a bouquet from the rink and then spotted something stuck to the ice and had a job trying to get it off.

Los Angeles 1984

• In the spring before the games began, McDonald's ran a promotion called “When the US Wins, You Win.” In it, you would be given a scratchable ticket with the name of an Olympic event on it. If the US won a gold medal in that event, you would get a free Big Mac. If they won silver, you would get a free order of French fries. If bronze, a free Coca-Cola. Thanks to the Soviet boycott, the US ended up winning far more Olympic medals than expected. For the duration of the games, it was not unusual to see whole families coming out of McDonald's restaurants with entire free meals!

Albertville 1992

• In a Winter Olympics where it seemed like hardly any figure skater could get through their routine without falling—People Magazine actually ranked "Olympic Figure Skating" on its year-end "Worst Of Tube" list—this performance by France's Laetitia Hubert really takes the cake. Kudos to her for not giving up and finishing, although she looked exhausted by the end.
  • American commentator Scott Hamilton, the 1984 gold medalist in men's figure skating, later admitted that the reason he stopped talking about halfway through is because he was laughing so much.
• This Saturday Night Live skit, which seemed to foreshadow Hubert's performance—Hamilton outright said it was the first thing he thought of.
• At the start of the second run of the four-man Bobsleigh, Unified Team member Alexandre Bortiuk slipped on the ice and dived in - and found himself going down the track the wrong way, facing one of his team mates.

Atlanta 1996

• The opening ceremony had pickup trucks enter the stadium while people spelled out "How Y'all Doin?" Seriously.
• One gymnast on the Chinese men's team paused halfway through his routine to wave to the audience, by using his foot. Doubly funny considering the reputation the Chinese have for being very straitlaced and serious.

Sydney 2000

• The hilarious if not endearing sight of Eric "The Eel" Moussambani, a guy who had never even seen an Olympic-sized pool before and really showed it - unopposed because the others in his heat made false starts!
• The guy who ran amok on a ride-on lawnmower during the closing ceremony. Briefly a national hero! Followed by this were floats that had drag queens.
  • The drag queens reappeared during the closing ceremony, re-enacting scenes from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The famous bus made an appearance too. This was the first open involvement of LGBT people in an Olympic event and the first time the Games accepted and promoted them. Naturally, NBC completely ignored the significance of this event.
• Somewhere between Funny and Awesome, during the introduction last leg of the Tin Symphony, we have what looks like a giant metal dragon entering the stadium.

Athens 2004

• Former Tennis player turned announcer Mary Carillo's rant about badminton, which starts off about the equipment used for the sport before quickly going Off the Rails about how the kids in her neighborhood basically wreck her home trying get a shuttlecock out of a tree.

Vancouver 2010

• "Fixing" the last leg of the indoor cauldron for the closing ceremony and allowing Catriona Le May Doan, the last torch bearer, to light it.
• A number of Canadian comedians expressing the country's appreciation towards their guests, including Michael J. Fox heartwarmingly declaring everybody as honorary Canadians—which he then claims means that Canada won every gold medal of the Games.
• William Shatner's speech, as shown here. Really, that entire closing ceremony was a cavalcade of hilarious self-parody.

London 2012

• Most of Danny Boyle's opening ceremony, which was called "wacky," "off-the-wall," and "bonkers" in many quarters.
  • Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean quasi-Mr. segment. The Chariots of Fire theme by Vangelis starts with all the drama and seriousness one would expect from the situation...and then the camera pans over to him sitting at the keyboard, clearly bored that his part only involves hitting the same "pulse" note over and over. He manages to take out his phone to take a picture, sneeze and play the keyboard with an umbrella so he can get a tissue out of his backpack, and then falls asleep, dreaming himself into the movie's "running on the beach" opening sequence. After cheating to win the foot-race^note Specifically, he takes a cab, he wakes up to find that the rest of the orchestra has finished the song and everyone is staring at him. The conductor—highly respected conductor Sir Simon Rattle—scrunches a displeased expression and signals for the final notes. So he does so, only to hit one messed-up note at the end (which sounds like a big fart).
  • Queen Elizabeth II parachuting out a helicopter with James Bond. American viewers got the bonus of Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer apparently being convinced it was real!
  • The Queen's corgis being filmed in the Shaky Cam method of the modern Bond films.
  • Daniel Craig looking bemused at the Winston Churchill statue waving at him, especially the part where he follows the Queen after being escorted to her office.
  • At the end of the sequence - when the Queen and Prince Philip are being introduced to the crowd - a man in the row behind where the royals would sit sees it on a screen and decides to crouch down so that he can completely be seen on screen. He then looks back up at the screen and smirks when he realises that he has just photobombed the Queen.
  • There's something just so cracktactic about 20x Mary Poppins defeating a giant Voldemort...especially since, if the music was any indication, we were supposed to take it dead seriously. British humor is like that. They're sure, but you're never quite sure...
• In the 2012 fencing event, one of the Italians complained his hits were not registering his Korean opponent and tested the connection with a self-inflicted◊ Ass Shove.
• Upon winning the 2012 discus throw, German Robert Harting cranks a Hulk Hogan before doing a victory lap by clearing the hurdles. It's just as hilarious as it sounds. He then went in to London to celebrate...and had to spend the night in a unnamed railway station after he had his accreditation nicked.
• "Games Maker" Rachel Onasanwo decided to do her job entirely in Deadpan Snarker mode, becoming an Internet and TV star in the process.
• The Chinese figured out that if they lost their first badminton match, they would have easier competition and make sure only the Chinese teams would make it to the finals. The South Koreans figured this out and decided to do the same, causing some hilariously bad matches. This was quickly found out—as it turns out, highly competitive athletes tend to be pretty bad at, and quite obvious about, trying to lose—and it led to one Chinese team and two South Korean teams being disqualified, which gave everyone else some cause for Schadenfreude.
• This commentary on a sailing race by someone who has no idea what's going on. He just makes sarcastic remarks about everything, until he realizes the race was not ending, but starting.
• Eric Idle performing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Monty Python's Life of Brian in the closing ceremony. In the middle of the performance, Bollywood dancers crash in and do a performance, all the while dousing Idle with colored dust. It has to be seen to be believed. Of course, the audience even joins in.
• There is a Chilean Memetic Mutation about La Princesa Caballo^Translation The Horse Princess, born from a sort-of prank by soccer fans^note The link is in Spanish. When a local TV station was covering the equestrian events and Princess Anne's daughter Lady Zara Phillips showed up, guess what one of the commentators started shouting?
• In the 10m platform event in diving, Qiu Bo reacted to winning silver by wailing and banging his fist against a wall. Tom Daley's reaction to winning bronze? He—and his friends—jumped into the pool.
• The Parade of Nations in the opening ceremony was carried out to a backing of iconic British music. What starts playing when Fiji comes out? Staying Alive...by The Bee Gees.
• Not concerning the Games themselves, but rather the promoters. When trying to decide which famous British celebrities should appear in the opening ceremony, they actually considered having Keith Moon of The Who to perform. The problem is, Keith Moon has been dead since 1978!
• Three words: Aly Raisman's parents. (This applies to both 2012 and 2016, since Raisman returned for a second Olympics.)

Sochi 2014

• The men's hockey semi-finals between the U.S. and Canada inspired a billboard in Chicago^note The home of the Blackhawks, whom Canadian player Jonathan Toews plays for. It was a very simple bet—the loser keeps Justin Bieber.
  • Updated the next day after the U.S. lost: An eagle wearing a gold chain saying "Belieber." The caption? "Worst bet ever."
• A technical malfunction prevented the fifth Olympic ring from opening out of its snowflake during the opening ceremony, as seen here. This was what the media chose to focus on, and it was all over Twitter as #ringfail, frustrating the organizers who had done splendidly on everything else. The rings' first appearance in the ceremony is an extremely important, glorious moment—just imagine if the forged rings at London hadn't worked out! Since everyone else was making fun of them, the organizers figured they'd make fun of themselves as well: In the closing ceremony, groups of ballerinas portrayed the five snowflakes, and amid thunderous applause and laughter, the last snowflake finally deployed. This was the image on the IOC website's 404 page for a while.
• Canadian sports talk show hosts Tim Micallef and Sid Seixeiro of "Tim & Sid" reacted appropriately when the Canadian women scored the overtime goal in ice hockey for the gold medal. For additional hilarity, British television show "The Last Leg" picked up on their reaction.
• At the Gala Exhibition, the Olympic audience gets to see Javier Fernandez's aerobics class.
• Yuzuru Hanyu's reaction when he realizes he's won his first Olympic gold: a creditable (probably accidental) impression of Stitch. "I'm first? I'm the first?" "Yeah, you are!" "Oh my god!"

Rio 2016

• The opening ceremony had cyclists before every delegation. A few were hilariously chill about it.
• Hope Solo posted some◊ Comical Overreacting about the Zika virus.^note Zika primarily affects poverty-stricken environments where the mosquitoes that carry it can breed. Tourists and athletes, living in more luxurious quarters with screens and proper hygiene, were much less likely be affected. In response, the Brazilians not only jeered her—as expected for the U.S. team—but they also made sure that every free kick of hers had a chant of "ZIKA!".
• In the basketball match between the U.S. and China, the Dream Team decides on who will execute free shoots...via a game of rock-paper-scissors.
• ESPN Brazil chose resident Large Ham Romulo Mendonça to broadcast volleyball. Hilarity ensued.
• Michael Phelps' Game Face◊.
• Chinese swimmer Fu Yuanhui twice had the third best time in the 100m backstroke, in the semi-finals and finals...only knowing it when a reporter told her so, as she is near-sighted and unable to read the scoreboard from the pool. She also gives Adorkable post-swim interviews and makes funny faces at her podium ceremonies.
• The members of Team Fiji's men's rugby sevens team are very tall, and they're on the top podium. So what do they do? They get on their knees to get the medals put on their necks—by Princess Anne, no less!
• During the men's 200m butterfly final in swimming, Canadian commentator Elliotte Friedman got Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte's lanes mixed up and consequently narrated the entire final as if Lochte was having the swim of his life. Whoops!
• During the men's 4x200m freestyle relay, Michael Phelps, the team's anchor, went to put on his swim cap and ripped it in half, just minutes before he was set to go. (Phelps borrowed a cap from the leadoff, Conor Dwyer, after Dwyer finished his part of the race, and the race proceeded without a hitch.)
• Everywhere it was noted how the Brazilian crowds were rowdy, cheering loudly in every sport like it was a football game—especially when their own teams were competing—and eventually finding some underdogs to support. One particularly funny example involves Ecuatorian boxer Carlos Mina, whose surname led to an old hit becoming a Crowd Song—and probably helping Mina win two fights.
  • Also in boxing, when the referee was Brazilian, he would be cheered instead of the fighters.
• For some reason, fencing loves using The Imperial March to bring the fencers in. Volleyball used the song to score challenges against referee decisions.
• After Joseph Schooling won the men's 100m butterfly final in swimming, many more people around the world^note This not being an entirely new joke for Singaporeans started punning on his surname with statements like "Michael Phelps got schooled." Singapore's Ministry of Education also jumped on the pun bandwagon when responding to Singaporeans asking for a public holiday to celebrate the country's first-ever gold medal^note Not that there would have been a holiday anyway if Joseph had a different surname or if the first gold medallist was someone else.
• Usain Bolt finds time to smile to the camera◊ in the middle of his 100m semi-finals race. And to prank a reporter after winning the 200m.
  • This moment in the semi-finals between Bolt and Canadian sprinter Andre de Grasse. Right at the finish line when Bolt was slowing down, Andre caught him up and almost beat him. Bolt noticed and made sure he finished first. The two men shared a cheeky grin, complete with finger wagging from Bolt as if to say, "Nu-uh, ain't no way you're beating me." One YouTube comment sums it all up:
  YouTube Comment: Imagine trying your hardest to catch up and Usain and Andre are just smiling and relaxing lmao
• Andy Murray, after winning the gold medal, accidentally breaks his Rio ornament during the medal ceremony and tries to hide the evidence behind his back.
  • Similarly, one of the presenters at the gold medal ceremony for men's basketball dropped and broke one of the trophies, with hilarious reactions from the players. Carmelo Anthony ended up being the man without.
• After winning the gold medal for Women's Freestyle 63k in wrestling, Risako Kawai flips her coach onto the mat twice, then carries him on her shoulders in a lap around the ring.
• The Brazil vs. Australia Women's Soccer knockout match was a tense game that was only decided in the shootouts. Just see what it did to Aussie captain Lisa De Vanna.
• Japanese supporters making their flag out of a department store bag◊.
• Mongolian wrestler Ganzorigiin Mandakhnaran losing out on the bronze medal because of an early celebration causing him to get penalized for evading the grapple was not very funny. His coaches reacting to the judges' denial of their protests by flying into a rage and stripping off their clothes, in one case all the way down to the skivvies, on the other hand? Hilarious.
  • Also, considering there was no way to throw contest flags, the coaches were tossing plushies of mascot Vinicius to argue with the referees!
• Spanish weight-lifter Lidia Valentín won the bronze medal in the 75kg category...and did this◊.
• At one point, Brazil was 13th on the medal table, with 6 golds, 6 silvers and 6 bronzes.
• Tokyo's promotional video for the 2020 Olympics in the closing ceremony has a skit where Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is stuck in traffic and realizes he won't be able to get to Rio in time. So he turns himself into Mario^note Complete with accurate sound effects and gets assisted by Doraemon who builds, in the middle of the world-famous Shibuya Crossing, a Warp Pipe with a drilling component similar to the Spin Drill to burrow through the earth's core so he can get to Maracanã Stadium^note Which becomes doubly funny when you realize that Brazil was fiercely loyal to Nintendo's arch-rival Sega during the console wars of the 1980s and 1990s. Then Prime Minister Abe makes his entrance through the Warp Pipe exit installed in the middle of the stadium, still wearing Mario's hat and clothes. The video also includes appearances from Captain Tsubasa, Pac-Man^note In both its original and Pac-Man World appearances, and Hello Kitty.
  • Nintendo later admitted that they chose to use Mario over any other franchise, partly because he's still the most recognizable face of Nintendo, and partly because they couldn't resist the 'MaRIO' pun.
• The tweets that resulted upon Team GB's landing at Heathrow due to the decision to give all the athletes identical bags.

PyeongChang 2018

• The actual medal ceremonies are held in front of the Olympic stadium in the evening. So what happens at the victory celebrations at the events themselves? They get adorable dolls of the Pyeongchang mascot Soohorang!
• The Norwegian team's catering staff accidentally ordered 15,000 eggs instead of 1,500.
• It was completely unsurprising but absolutely hilarious that the United States walked into the stadium to "Gangnam Style".
  • As an added bonus, the kids dancing in the background had been doing fairly generic dance moves up until this point. What do they do when the chorus hits? Why, they start doing the horse galloping move of course! Some of the athletes were doing it as well.
• Red Gerard won the US its first gold of the games, but getting there was hilarious, according to this article. He overslept, and then had to borrow his roommate's jacket because he couldn't find his own. Oh, and he said 'shit' on international television.
• Downtime at Pyeongchang inspires ingenuity.
  • Swiss skier Fabian Bösch shows everyone they've been taking the escalator wrong. Later, along with Swiss team head coach J.P. Furrer, Bösch invents an entirely new sport.
  • American luger and silver medalist Chris Mazdzer displays his pizza-eating skills.
• Not wanting to interrupt Shoma Uno's press talk, countryman and fellow figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu decided the appropriate action was to crawl behind him.
• Everything Yuzuru Hanyu and his fellow men's singles figure skaters did during the Gala Practice should count:
  • Collectively switching to speed skating. Hanyu loses traction and slides, hitting the board with his back, laughing the entire time.
  • Attempts at switching to curling.
  • Misha Ge turns into a sliding penguin as a fellow skater obliviously practices behind him.
• Behind the scenes, Brian Orser (two-time Olympic silver medalist and Hanyu's coach) gets a self-deprecating dig in.
  Yuzuru Hanyu: You have six-pack?
  Brian Orser: Underneath. (rubs stomach) In the trunk of my car.
• The gala itself has hilarious moments.
  • First, we get a performance to "Barbie Girl". Cue the pair proceeding to do practically every move banned in actual competition.
  • Some decided to go with quite eccentric combinations of costumes and songs - like this performance to "Mic Drop".
  • Last but not least, the Olympic audience gets to witness Javi's aerobics class once more!
• After Australian aerial skier David Morris qualifies for the finals, the Australian reporter and colour commentator are standing in front talking about the upcoming finals. Just as the color commentator mentions David's name, he skis past them and whoops as he does so!
• Norway's men's curling team-already well known for their outlandish and memetic pants-upped their game by wearing special Valentine's Day themed pants for the first day of round-robins... which was on February 14.
• Throughout the Canada vs. United States women's ice hockey gold medal match, Canadian ice dance gold medallist Scott Moir kept women's hockey fans smiling. For bonus funny, look at the reactions of fellow Canadian figure skaters Patrick Chan and Keegan Messing who are sitting on either side of Scott.
• Doping is a very serious violation and abusers should be punished. Nevertheless, many people couldn't help cracking jokes when someone in curling—not a very physically demanding sport—was caught doping.
• Speaking of curling, Niklaus Edin, knowing that there was no way Sweden could beat the United States, gives a little twirl as he launches his final stone before conceding.

Tokyo 2020

• The Pictograms segment of the opening ceremony was the perfect mix of Awesome and Funny, but the nadir of that segment was when they touched on the horse-centered events of the Olympics: one can hear a few bars of 'Camptown Races' being played. And who says Japan doesn't have a sense of humor.
  • Also, one of the pictogram performers dropped the prop when it was time to demonstrate badminton.
  • How they showed the 'Sailing' pictogram was to zoom in on the emblem on the shirt of a very confused prop guy.
  • While demonstrating the pictograms for combat sports, two persons began sparring in 'Kumite', one posed for 'Kata' (with the help of an assistant) after knocking down the other opponent, then said opponent got up and fought back in a 'Judo' move while suspending the other mid-air, and finally before settling in a 'Wrestling' pose, they took off their clothes - but how the other person bizarrely disrobed was on another level. "The gi comes off" indeed.
• Filipino skater Margielyn Didal falls, fakes pain, and emerges smiling. Brazilians also loved seeing her photobombing a TV interview.
• After Australian swimmer Kaylee McKeown won the gold, accidentally dropped an F-bomb during her interview, following up with an Oh, Crap! reaction where she swore again.
  • She wasn’t the only one. The BBC had to get their bleep machine out after an interview with British swimmer Adam Peaty, who had just defended his Olympic crown, resulted in two F-bombs, and presumably the Chinese one was working overtime after one of their badminton player’s repeatedly shouted out “Cao,” during one her matches. “Cao,” means fuck in Mandarin.
  • There were also two Brazilian cases, "Calm down, cunt! Fuck!" and "I fucking deserved it!" (and that's not counting two commenters, a football one shouting "Holy shit!" and a skateboarder reacting to a contestant landing crotch-first on the railing with "cooched in the tournament" - she'd later one-up herself saying another contestant "arrived putting her pussy on the table") The latter one led to the coaches complaining the boxers were swearing too much, making them find a replacement, thus a woman celebrated a semifinal win with "This is Brazil, rocambole!" - only for that same guy to celebrate his gold with "Rocambole, to not say FUCK!"
  • Another two from British athletes: Keely Hodgkinson, after crossing the line in the 800 metres, looked up at the screen to see where she finished and realised that not only had she had won a silver medal, but had broken her PB and ran a national record at the same time. She then put her hands to her head, and exclaimed “What the fuck?”, and cyclist Ethan Hayter, after winning a silver medal in the Madison, and who was being interview trackside straight after the race said “fucking”, and quickly changed it to “flipping”, when he realised what he said live on The BBC.
• Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus's coach Dean Boxall going absolutely apeshit after Titmus wins gold in the women's 400m freestyle.
• Team GB's diving coach Jane Figueiredo certainly helped to break to the tension in the men's 10m synchronised diving with her antics. Each nailed dived by the charges were greeted with a lot of enthusiasm and when they actually won the competition, she could have given some of the gymnast's a run for their money with her excited jumping around. Just watch her in the highlights here.
• Irish rower Paul O’Donovan’s somewhat laid back, and hilarious interviews after winning Ireland’s first ever rowing gold medal.
• Two-time Olympic BMX champion Mariana Pajon, who took silver in Tokyo, photobombing gold medalist Bethany Shriever's interview.
• BBC sports presenter Clare Balding’s accidental Double Entendre when interviewing two of the four swimmers of Britain’s 4x200 metre gold winning team about their ‘third leg…’
• During the final minutes of Women's Field Hockey match between Argentina and Spain, the cameraman decided to film a cockroach instead of the actual match.
• A small giggle-worthy moment: when receiving medals for the Women's Vault, Yeo Seo-jeong picked up her bronze medal... and stood there awkwardly holding it, not sure what to do with it. Until she turned to look at gold medallist Rebeca Andrade, who subtly signalled for her to put it around her neck.
• During the men's +109KG weightlifting on day 12, the competitor from the Czech Republic began to pick up the weights... but ended up dropping them again with such a force that he rolled backwards off the stand.
• The street skateboarding had a full-on Jackass moment when Keegan Palmer finished a run by taking down a cameraman!
  • The BBC commentary makes the moment funnier:
    Commentator 1: Do you get extra points for that?
    Commentator 2: He's still working! That guy's just secured next year's pay rise.
• Depending on how you look at it, what happened in the women’s modern pentathlon to German athlete Anna Schleu is either a very distressing and uncomfortable watch, or the horse indulging in some Comedic Sociopathy. To add some context, the horse in question, called Saint Boy, had already been cracked around his head with a whip by the previous rider after he refused one fence, so probably wasn’t in the best of moods after that experience. When Schleu mounted, she struggled to control him, and broke into tears, which wasn’t the best of starts (Horses tend to work better when the person riding them is calm). When her coach decided to then punch the horse (which got her expelled from the Games) as if that would convince him to cooperate, it probably doesn’t take a genius to work out why Saint Boy decided to be even less inclined to do what Schleu, who was in a very distressed state by this point, wanted him to, especially when she decided to dig her spurs in hard, and use her whip. The end result was the horse refusing several jumps, and sending Schleu, who was the leader of the competition at that point, down to last, and ending any hopes she had of a medal.
  • This incident has drawn worldwide attention and concern for Saint Boy — his owners say he was exhausted but otherwise okay^note Famed equestrian and animal rights activist Kaley Cuoco fired off a beautiful tirade about the incident and offered to buy Saint Boy to "show him the life he deserves". — and calls for reform in pentathlon as riders and horses are assigned by lot and have only a few minutes to get acquainted. (Experts on horse psychology frown on this. Horses have their own dispositions and temperaments; it can take years to get to know and work with one.) Suggestions included not having pentathlon, letting competitors ride their own horses, changing that part of the pentathlon to something else, or not having horses in the Games anymore at all. Isabell Werth, acknowledged as the greatest equestrian competitor, says the whole system must be changed. In 2021, the Committee announced that horses would be discontinued from pentathlon. As of 2022, pentathlon competitors will run an obstacle course instead. This has led to the revelation of controversies almost as old as the Games between the pentathlon's governing authority and the Olympic Committee.
• Two Brazilians celebrating: a swimmer making a meme real, and a rower arriving at the podium doing a kamehameha!
• Sixteen-year-old Chinese gymnast Guan Chenchen performed a flawless and incredibly difficult routine to win gold on the balance beam... and then tripped over her own feet while walking over for a group picture not ten minutes later. Apparently tumbling on a four-inch-wide stick is a piece of cake, but walking is a little more difficult....

Beijing 2022

• The brakeman of the Brazilian two man bobsleigh, Edison Martins, failing over when trying to push the bob off the start during a training run.
• France’s Lucile Leferve, who had injured herself just before the Games, and knew that she wasn’t in any shape to challenge, decided to have fun by wearing a tiger suit while competing in the Women’s Big Air qualifying.
• Jon Sallinen of Finland has his own Jackass moment by taking out a cameramen during the Men’s Ski half pipe qualifying.
• Doubling as Heartwarming: Liu Xinyu (Chinese ice dancer) continues his trend of princess carrying and lifting Yuzuru Hanyu (Japanese men's singles skater) - not once, not twice, but four times. During the gala practice, as well as the gala, at the urging of Wang Shiyue (Liu's partner), Liu also spun with a delighted, laughing Hanyu in his arms. After he's put down, Hanyu does the proper flourishes and curtsies just like Wang would have. Post-event, Liu Xinyu posted Hanyu's selfie with Bing Dwen Dwen (the mascot) on Weibo, because Yuzuru (who had no official social media back then) knew many people wanted to see the selfie, and so forwarded it to Xinyu, as well as a video of Xinyu lifting Yuzuru in a stationary lift backstage. D'awww.
• Nobunari Oda (former figure skater who came to the Olympics as a journalist) queued for four and a half hours, advancing ten meters per hour, to buy a plushie of Bing Dwen Dwen. "I plan to wait 4 to 5 hours. I'll do my best, and if I don't, I'll cry at the media center." His triumphant reaction when he finally acquired one - a special edition, no less, and by complete coincidence - is something to behold.◊

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