Did You Know?....1948 Olympics....

[ToraToraTora]

The 1948 olympics in London included such "sports" as Architecture, Literature, Music, Painting and Sculpture.

[ichkeria]

I hope you are going to do a book of these Tora ;-)

[ToraToraTora]

....would you buy it ich?

[dannyk13]

Those categories came under the heading Arts and had to be sports related.

[ichkeria]

Certainly would!

[LadyCG]

I do believe that in Ancient Greece the athletes competed naked.

[New Judge]

What you must bear in mind is that the 1948 London games were very much a "make-do-and-mend" version. The entire world was only just recovering from the ravages of WW2 and hosting the games was very much a low priority for the UK government.

Among other things, they converted Wembley into an athletics stadium by putting 800 tonnes of cinders over the greyhound track and housed the competitors in RAF camps. Members of the British team bulked out their meagre diets with whale meat.

I imagine the "events" you describe were held as part of that austerity so as to bulk the games out at the expense of "real" events which would have been more expensive to hold.

[davebro]

//a small elite controls the mass media, keeping the lower classes docile by serving them an endless diet of lowest common denominator programmes and pornography.//

Prophetic?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_the_Sex_Olympics

[mushroom25]

in 1948, the BBC paid £1000.00 for the broadcasting rights.

Discovery bought the rights for Tokyo 2021, Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024 in a combined deal worth 920,000 times as much as the 1948 price.

[davebro]

I know there were probably a few TVs in 1948 but the Olympics on radio?

[Atheist]

I've heard of the 'Novel Writing from Dorset' competition, but didn't know it had made the Olympics!
They really should include Petanque.

[Gromit]

The 1948 medals for the Arts were not anything unusual, the Olympics had had that category since 1912.

// For the first four decades of competition, the Olympics awarded official medals for painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music, alongside those for the athletic competitions. From 1912 to 1952, juries awarded a total of 151 medals to original works in the fine arts inspired by athletic endeavors. //

Even before that, the 1908 London games had Cricket and Bowls competitions, as well as Tug of War.

[Gromit]

// imagine the "events" you describe were held as part of that austerity so as to bulk the games out at the expense of "real" events which would have been more expensive to hold. //

Nope. They had been in all Olympic games since 1912.

[davebro]

there's always this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisteddfod

& the Much Wenlock Olympics!

[New Judge]

//Nope. They had been in all Olympic games since 1912.//

Well my ghast has never been so flabbered! Thanks gromit.

[Khandro]

//Those categories came under the heading Arts and had to be sports related.//
//I do believe that in Ancient Greece the athletes competed naked.//

And in ancient Greece mathematics was one of the arts.
Naked mathematicians ?

[Mamyalynne]

You've confused two disciplines there Khandro - the Arts and Athletics.

Unless they did equations whilst sprinting of course.

[dannyk13]

Khandro//And in ancient Greece mathematics was one of the arts.//
But it wasn't in the Olympics.

[Khandro]

But if the arts were in the Olympics & mathematics was one of the arts, the syllogism follows that mathematics was in the Olympics.

[dannyk13]

Khandro the Arts are listed as in the OP.