Olympic Poodle Clipping

[LizT]

Here's one I heard about today. :)

128: The number of competitors who participated in the poodle-clipping event at the 1900 Olympics in Paris. The event was held in the leafy environs of the Bois de Boulogne and it was the only occasion that it featured as an Olympic discipline.

This, no doubt, came as a relief to Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the French founding father of the modern Olympic movement, who had opposed its inclusion, but was outvoted by his International Olympic Committee colleagues.

The gold medal was won by Avril Lafoule, a 37-year-old farmer's wife from the Auvergne region of France, who successfully clipped 17 poodles in the allotted two-hour time frame.

The poodle-clipping competition, held on April 1, was watched by 6,000 spectators, one of the larger audiences at the most chaotic Olympic Games of all.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/2565840/How-Telegraph-struck-Olympic-poodle-clipping-gold-in-Beijing.html

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[Lady Flying Furball]

Here's one I heard about today. :)

128: The number of competitors who participated in the poodle-clipping event at the 1900 Olympics in Paris. The event was held in the leafy environs of the Bois de Boulogne and it was the only occasion that it featured as an Olympic discipline.

This, no doubt, came as a relief to Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the French founding father of the modern Olympic movement, who had opposed its inclusion, but was outvoted by his International Olympic Committee colleagues.

The gold medal was won by Avril Lafoule, a 37-year-old farmer's wife from the Auvergne region of France, who successfully clipped 17 poodles in the allotted two-hour time frame.

The poodle-clipping competition, held on April 1, was watched by 6,000 spectators, one of the larger audiences at the most chaotic Olympic Games of all.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/2565840/How-Telegraph-struck-Olympic-poodle-clipping-gold-in-Beijing.html

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It is funny to read the events that once were in the Olympics. I read about the underwater obstacle course Apparently, not a success!

[westiemum]

Maybe they should bring it back as an Olympic sport! :D

[Decadence]

April Fools!

[westiemum]

Er... its July... and poodle clipping and grass growing would be far more interesting than this rather obscene OTT spectacle.

[Decadence]

There were 128 days left before the Games. Yep, you're right - it was April 1.

Here's the April Fool in full:

128 days to go . . .

128: The number of competitors who participated in the poodle-clipping event at the 1900 Olympics in Paris. The event was held in the leafy environs of the Bois de Boulogne and it was the only occasion that it featured as an Olympic discipline.

This, no doubt, came as a relief to Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the French founding father of the modern Olympic movement, who had opposed its inclusion, but was outvoted by his International Olympic Committee colleagues.

The gold medal was won by Avril Lafoule, a 37-year-old farmer's wife from the Auvergne region of France, who successfully clipped 17 poodles in the allotted two-hour time frame.

The poodle-clipping competition, held on April 1, was watched by 6,000 spectators, one of the larger audiences at the most chaotic Olympic Games of all.

The curious case of Olympic poodle-clipping is a classic web tale. Cut from the original Telegraph countdown and pasted into the blogosphere, it took on a life of its own, losing all its original context and eventually becoming a "fact" in Beijing.

[LizT]

Er... its July... and poodle clipping and grass growing would be far more interesting than this rather obscene OTT spectacle.

Are you referring to the very expensive getting together of massive egos we have every four years??? ;)

[westiemum]

Er... its July... and poodle clipping and grass growing would be far more interesting than this rather obscene OTT spectacle.

Are you referring to the very expensive getting together of massive egos we have every four years??? ;)

That's the one!! The one where those fragile egos collapse if the don't get a piece of metal - particularly a yellow one!! (They only seem to like the yellow ones!) Maybe like kindy they should all get a yellow one 'for trying'...