Famous Olympians After Olympics

Some Olympians become famous for other accomplishments long after the medal glory wears off. Here are a few folks you might not remember for participating in the Olympics.
Dr. Benjamin Spock, author of the bestselling Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946), was the authority on child rearing in Baby Boomer America. Spock rowed with Yale's crew team and made the men's eights team for the 1924 Paris Olympics. He won a gold medal at age 21. He also  placed third in a 4-mile rowing contest at age 84.

General George S. Patton, World War II officer who led the U.S. Third Army on the Western Front, was famous for his foul mouth, rousing speeches, and tenacious leadership. He placed fifth in the inaugural modern pentathlon (swimming, riding, fencing, running, shooting) at the 1912 Olympics.
Bruce Dern was second in 1500 meters and 800 meters events in the Senior Olympics.

Geena Davis picked up archery as a hobby, but almost made the 2000 USA Olympic Team, where she placed 24th out of 300 at the tryouts. She had only been shooting for two years prior to trying out.

Jason Statham developed an interest in diving at age 11, joined Britain’s National Diving Team and competed in the 1990 Commonwealth Games.
Dolph Lundgren was asked to serve as the Team Leader for the 1996 US Olympic Modern Pentathlon team.

Strother Martin, from Cool Hand Luke movie,  "What we've got here is failure to communicate." He entered the adult National Springboard Diving competition in hopes of gaining a berth on the US Olympic team, but finished third in the competition.

Super Bowl and Olympic Cameras

Even though we will not be seeing the Super bowl in 4K in the US, it will be filmed in 4K. The same is true for the Winter Olympics, which will be filmed in 4K and 8K HDR, but will not be shown on cable in 4K in the US, except by Xfinity. Unfortunate that the rest of the world gets to enjoy 4K, while we do not. Seems many countries have more advanced distribution systems than the US. The good news is that regardless of the game play, the Super Bowl commercials are always worth watching.

Olympic feeds will all be distributed in 4K, then locally distributed by country. South Korea will be broadcasting the Winter Olympics in 4K HDR throughout the country. It utilizes the ATSC 3.0 broadcasting that will be tested in the US beginning this Spring. This standard will replace the current antenna (OTA) signals in the US and allow us to receive 4K TV with an antenna.

For the Super Bowl, NBC Sports will deploy 36 cameras with a mix of Canon and Fujinon lenses. Among them will be:
Four Sony HDC-4800’s operating in 4K,
Seven Sony HDC-4300 hard cameras configured for 6X super-slo-mo
One Sony HDC-4300 operating in 4K,
Two Sony HDC-4300 handhelds configured for 6X.
Eight Sony HDC-2500 hard cameras,
Eight Sony HDC-2500 handheld cameras,
Two SkyCams and a few robos.

The four Sony HDC-4800 4K cameras, outfitted with Fujinon PL 85-300mm Cabrio lenses, will be positioned in the left and right end zone and the near-left and far-left sideline. The Sony HDC-4300 4K camera, with a Canon 95X lens, will be positioned in the high-left end zone.

Another Obscure Olympic Fact

During the 1900 Paris Olympics, golf first appeared at the Olympic Games, and one of the last for over a century. (The sport returned to the Olympics for the 2016 Rio Games.)

The first American woman, Margaret Abbott to win an Olympic gold medal was not aware of what she won. Records suggest she went her entire life oblivious to her historic achievement. Her mother, Mary Ives Abbott entered the competition as well. It was the first and only time in Olympic history that a mother and daughter competed in the same sport, in the same event, at the same time. Margaret Abbott passed away during 1955 unaware of the milestone she had set.

Olympic Trivia

American John Heaton won the silver medal for the Skeleton (like a head first luge) in the 1928 games.  He came back 20 years later for the 1948 games and won another silver medal in the Skeleton. He retains the record for the longest span between winning two Olympic medals for the same event. Incidentally, he also won the bronze medal in the two-man bobsled at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Games.

Figure skating debuted in the 1908 Summer Games in London. The other warm weather events were held in April and the figure skating was held at the end of October, which made the London Games the longest in modern Olympics history.

Figure skating returned, along with ice hockey, in the 1920 Summer Games in Antwerp and both events were held in April along with the warm weather sports. Canada was the winner of the first Olympic ice hockey gold medal.

The Winter Olympic Games debuted in 1924 in Chamonix, France. The Winter Games included skiing, bobsledding, and curling, along with figure skating and ice hockey.

Facts About The Olympics

With the beautiful pictures of the Sochi games blasting at us at all hours lately, I thought it might be interesting to write about the origin of the Olympics. The Olympics got its name from city named Olympia, Greece, where the original games were held. The 1936 Olympics were the first to be televised.

Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin convened a congress in Paris in 1894 with the goal of reviving the ancient Olympic Games. The congress agreed on proposals for a modern Olympics, and the International Olympic Committee was formalized and given the task of planning the 1896 Athens Games.

The first new Olympic Games featuring athletes from all five inhabited parts of the world was in Stockholm in 1912. This prompted the design of five interlocked rings. He drew and colored the rings and added them to a letter Coubertin sent to a colleague. He used his ring design as the emblem of the Committee's 20th anniversary celebration in 1914. A year later, it became the official Olympic symbol.

The rings were to be used on flags and signage at the 1916 Games, but those games were cancelled, because of the ongoing World War, so the rings made the official debut at the 1920 Games in Antwerp, Belgium.  At the end of each Olympic Games, the mayor of the host-city presents the flag to the mayor of the next host-city. It then rests at the town hall of the next host-city for four years until the Opening Ceremony of its Olympic Games.

Coubertin explained his design: "A white background, with five interlaced rings in the centre (sic): blue, yellow, black, green and red...is symbolic; it represents the five inhabited continents of the world, united by Olympism, while the six colors are those that appear on all the national flags of the world at the present time." He never said nor wrote that any specific ring represents a specific continent. It is a myth that the rings were inspired by a similar, ancient design found on a stone at Delphi, Greece. The stone was made as a prop.

The Olympic motto was also proposed by Pierre, "Citius, Altius, Fortius", which is Latin for "Swifter, Higher, Stronger."

Special Olympics - In 1971, The US Olympic Committee gave the Special Olympics official approval to use the name “Olympics”. In 1988, the Special Olympics was officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee. Special Olympics is the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, providing year-round training and competitions to more than 4.2 million athletes in 170 countries. Special Olympics competitions are held every day, all around the world, including local, national and regional competitions, adding up to more than 70,000 events per year.

The motto for the Special Olympics is "Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."

I have the honor and privilege to assist in presenting medals to Special Olympians today at our Special Olympics of Texas Developmental Skills Competition.

Quote

When asked about his future prospect of communication satellites in 1961, US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Tunis Craven claimed, “There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States.” This was eventually proven false, when a communication satellite named Syncom 3 successfully transmitted communication signals from Japan to the United States three years later, during the 1964 Olympics.

Olympic 3D

While the 2008 Olympics were the first to be broadcast entirely in HD, the 2012 Olympics are the first to broadcast in HD as well as 3D. The games were first televised in Berlin in 1936 and played on big screens about the city. Then came the first games to enter households, strictly in London in 1948, followed by the first internationally televised games during the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

Happy Pheidippides Day

Legend has it that, on this day in the year 490 B.C., a trained runner by the name of Pheidippides (or Phidippides or Philippides) of Athens, was dispatched to seek help against the invading Persian army. He ran for two days and two nights to the city of Sparta, about 125 miles away. Because of a religious festival, he could not get the needed help until after the next full moon, so he ran back without reinforcements.

Fortunately, they won the battle against the Persians at Marathon. After the battle and victory, Pheidippides ran 26 miles from Marathon to Athens to carry the news of the victory. His last words before he collapsed and died, were something like, "We have won."

In honor of Pheidippides, the 26-mile marathon became part of the Olympic Games held in Athens in 1896. Seventeen runners began, but only nine finished the race. Hamilton Ontario’s 30k Around the Bay Road Race is the oldest long-distance race in North America. It was first run in 1894 – two years before the first Olympics and three years before Boston.

At the Olympic games in London in 1908, King Edward VII asked to have the race begin near Queen Victoria’s statue at Windsor Castle. The revised distance of 26 miles to the stadium, plus a 385-yard lap of the track was established. This is the distance each race honors today.

Olympic Cheescake

Cheesecake is believed to have originated in ancient Greece and was served to the athletes during the first Olympic Games held in 776 BC.

Cheese making can be traced back as far as 2,000 BC, and anthropologists have found cheese molds dating back to that period.

Cheesecake was mentioned in Marcus Porcius Cato's De re Rustica around 200 BC and he described making his cheese libum (cake) with results very similar to modern cheesecake."