I Can’t Stop Thinking About the “Dullest” Olympic Sport of All Time

The Olympics are a reflection of the times, and as a result, many sports have come and gone as official games played in the hundred-plus-year history of the modern games. However, one defunct “sport” (and I use that in the loosest sense of the word) haunts me.

I am talking about the ‘Plunge for Distance’ once called the “dullest” Olympic sport of all time, and friends? I would give anything for it to become an official Olympic sport again. Anything.

Now, speaking as an American, one of the joys of the Olympics is watching sports I wouldn’t normally get access to. The more obscure (in the U.S.) the better, especially if Americans don’t normally place well in the finals. I will sit riveted to my screen during the walking races because those rules are bananas, and no one is actually walking (they’re slow-running!), and rather than try to enforce the rules, they simply changed them. It’s great!

So it’s with that spirit in mind that I bring to you Plunging for Distance, where contestants plunge face down into the water, arms outstretched … and float away. That’s it. That’s the sport. You win by plunging the furthest (without moving your body) over the course of 60 seconds, or another version, where the winner was determined by how far you could float without coming up for air. Riveting stuff.

Plunging for Distance was an official Olympic game in 1904, but did not make any other Olympic appearances. How dare they.

Can you imagine how amazing it would be to watch this again at the Olympics? People just plank themselves facedown into the water and then … do nothing? And the person who does the least wins the most? This is my kind of sport!

This is a sport that even during the peak of its popularity, was derided by basically everyone. Per the BBC:

Even the British journalist Archibald Sinclair, who was sympathetic to distance plunging, stated matter-of-factly that the activity was often vetoed from swimming competitions because it didn’t produce any excitement among spectators. In all, “to the uninitiated the contests appear [an] absolute waste of time,” he wrote in the book Swimming, published in 1893.

Honestly, this quote just reiterates that sometimes greatness is not recognized until it’s too late. I can think of nothing I would love more than to watch people fall headfirst into the water, and then do nothing, while TV commentators critique their form, and give background information on their training regimen. Show me the plunger’s coach screaming on the sidelines, “Do less! do less!” I want to find out that some country you’d never expect—somewhere landlocked preferably—produces the best plungers in the world. I want it all! Only we’ll never find out if Moldova produces the best Plunge for Distance swimmers floaters athletes in the world because they removed it from the Games!

The Olympics are for elite athletes who train, possibly their entire lives, to compete. Plunging for Distance seems like a sport you could take up and master in an afternoon. (That was a source of criticism back in the day, even.) I believe it’s the sport of the people! The ones who don’t want to sacrifice anything and maybe continue to eat garbage (hi, it’s me, I’m writing this entire post-one-handed while I obliterate a container of Trader Joe’s ‘Step up to the Snack Bar mix’) and still win Olympic gold.

Plunging for Distance is for the ordinary people of the world who still want to dream of Olympic glory. This is the ‘”Festivus” of Olympic sports, and I will never forgive the powers that be for removing it from the Olympic Games. So to the IOC, I say: Bring black Plunging for Distance, you cowards. Give the people (ok, maybe person, as in me) what they want!