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The Olympics are flying along, South Africa has two medals in the bag (both silvers), and there is much more to come.

In light of this, it never hurts to have a few facts tucked away for the next braai or dinner, especially the sort that you can be sure nobody else is going to know.

Yes, the Olympic five rings symbol “expresses the activity of the Olympic Movement and represents the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world”, but that’s a little boring.

The exact origin of the modern Olympics is unknown, but they are tied to Olympia and the sanctuary of Zeus, near the west coast of the Peloponnesian peninsula in southern Greece.

The earliest named winner of an event was Koroibos, a cook from the city of Elis, who won a 600-feet foot race in 776 BCE.

Again, a little boring. Instead, how about a whopper related to athletes originally competing in the nude? This via The Daily Beast:

As is quite well-known, ancient athletes competed in the buff. But this is only partially true: while exposing one’s penis was acceptable you were expected to cover the head of your penis with what, to ancient Greeks, was the most attractive part: the foreskin.

As a result, circumcised men were not permitted to enter events.

Ah yes, some fantastic pre-dinner conversation.

The Olympics features athletes overcoming the odds to secure glory, and just because one didn’t possess a foreskin didn’t mean it was the end of the road.

Some aspiring competitors sported unconvincing prosthetic foreskins or underwent risky medical procedures to try and manufacture new ones.

As a piece of clothing, the foreskin could be styled. Beginning around 500 BCE, uncut Olympians, began to wear their prepuce using a kynodesme (quite literally a “dog leash”). The device worked by tying a piece of leather around the foreskin and securing the penis around the waist or tucking it under the penis itself.

That made for a more streamlined athlete, so think of it as the ancient equivalent of a swimmer shaving all of their body hair.

The ancient Olympics, as they are known, are believed to have ended in 393 CE, after Christian Emperor Theodosius I banned all pagan festivals:

Most histories pick up again in the 19th century when the French Baron Pierre de Coubertin was inspired to re-found the games as an international event. In 1894 the International Olympic Committee was established and the first modern Olympics was held in Athens in 1896.

Much like how any argument on social media eventually devolves into somebody calling somebody else Hitler or a Nazi (dubbed Godwin’s Law), this story also involves the Führer.

Some of the things closely associated with the modern Olympics were as a result of Hitler’s intervention:

Torches were certainly not a feature of ancient events…Hitler, on the other hand, loved the things. Though they were first introduced at the 1928 games, it was Hitler who exoticized them by introducing the famous relay.

This was the first time that a 12-day-run opened the games. As Tony Perrottet the author of The Naked Olympics wrote in his book, while “most people today assume it was a revival of a pagan tradition …it was actually concocted for Hitler’s Games in Berlin.”

For Hitler the Olympics and the mythology of ancient Greece gelled perfectly with his beliefs in Aryan supremacy and the mythic origins of the German people. Greek sculpture and male bodies featured on stamps produced by the Third Reich and Nazi tv and radio reports repeatedly touted the ancient origins of the games.

The 1936 Olympics, held in Berlin, are perhaps most famous for Black American athlete Jesse Owens winning four gold medals, which certainly put a dent in Hitler’s Aryan supremacy theory.

In case you don’t consider any of the above appropriate for braai or dinner discussion (foreskins and Hitler, I guess I see your point), we’ll throw in a few more PC facts via Athlon Sports:

Only two people have ever won gold medals during the Summer and Winter Olympics

Gillis Grafstrom and Eddie Eagan hold this distinction. Grafstrom, from Sweden, won gold in figure skating in the 1920 Summer Olympics as well as the 1924 and 1928 Winter Games. Eagan accomplished this feat in different disciplines, taking home gold in boxing in 1920 and later winning a gold medal at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Games in the team bobsled event.

Two athletes have won gold medals competing for two different nations

Daniel Carrol first won gold in Rugby representing Australia in 1908 and then again in 1920 for the United States.  Kakhi Kakhiashvili won his first gold medal in Men’s Weightlifting competing as part of the Unified Team in the 1992 Barcelona Games, and later as a Greek citizen in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.

The first Olympic drug suspension did not occur until 1968

Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall, a Swedish Pentathlete, tested positive for alcohol. He purportedly drank several beers before the Pentathlon and was thus suspended from the competition.

That’s about as absurd as suspending American sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson for testing positive for marijuana.

Happy fact-sharing.

[sources:dailybeast&athlonsports]