Olympic Clippers: When Poodle Grooming Was an Official Sport
Discover the surprising story of how poodle grooming became an Olympic event.
We know we truly must be in 2024 when we’re watching 16 ‘B-Boys’ and 16 ‘B-Girls’ going hell for leather, busting moves for their shot at a gold medal in breakdancing. Gone are the days where you could assume a Freestyle medal was won in the pool, and not have to ask “swimming or dancing?” No shade to our dancers, we certainly couldn’t do what they do, but it did have us pondering what might be next, and what sports came before it but didn't cut the Olympic mustard.
Well you know we love our deep dives into research and this one gave us an ending we didn’t expect, so we highly encourage you to read till the end, because you deserve the emotional rollercoaster as much as we did.
So a few facts just to get our timelines gauged:
The first modern (Summer) Olympics were held in 1896 with 14 nations and 241 athletes, all of whom were male (2024 is the first year we’ve achieved a complete 50:50 split of male and female athletes, finally!)
All 14 nations were European except for the United States.
The games included Athletics, Fencing, Gymnastics, Shooting, Swimming, Tennis, Weightlifting and Wrestling.
The most successful Olympian at the 1896 games was German Wrestler and Gymnast Carl Schuhmann who won four events.
We’re trying to appreciate what kind of athlete you would have to be to compete in these two events but we can’t shut the image out of our heads of what a Gymnast/Wrestler would look like today…
Anyhoo!
Whilst we can’t see into the future and tell you what’s next, we can have a giggle about some of the events that have been included in the Olympics in the past. Stay tuned, this does have something to do with dog grooming, we promise!
HONOURABLE MENTIONS:
1. Solo Synchronised Swimming
Whilst it doesn’t sound particularly outrageous, the definition of ‘synchronised’ is to “operate or occur at the same time or rate”. So, this event begs the questions, how is one synchronised if they’re swimming on their own? How did we know the flailing arms were in fact part of the routine and not a desperate-albeit-artistic wave for a lifeguard? It only took us until the late 20th century to decide we couldn’t tell the difference.
2. Plunge For Distance
Think diving mixed with long jump. Competitors would plunge from a standing start and then have up to a minute to float underwater to the furthest distance. Turns out watching people float underwater, whilst having the potential to cure insomnia, wouldn’t last past its first inclusion.
3. Town Planning
No we’re not kidding. For 20 years there was a push for the Olympics to encourage links between sport and art. As a result there were competitions for five categories: architecture, literature, music, sculpture and painting. Town planning was a subcategory of architecture and medals were awarded four times between 1928 and 1948. Suddenly breakdancing doesn’t seem so outlandish.
So, what about the Poodles?
In 2008, in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics, writer Christopher Lyle wrote fun Olympic facts, depending on the amount of days left until the opening ceremony. On the 1st of April, 128 days until the Beijing Olympics, we learnt about Olympic Poodle Clipping in 1900.
The competition included 128 competitors who had 2 hours to clip as many Poodles as possible. The gold medal was awarded to Avril Lafoule, a 37-year-old from the Auvergne region of France, who clipped 17 Poodles in front of a crowd of 6,000 (safe to say Continental cuts were not part of the comp).
That’s one Poodle every 7.06 minutes. We couldn’t imagine anyone being able to beat that, nor would we ever find out, as all online reports tell us this was a test event, and wouldn’t be included again after the 1900 Paris games.
We do wonder what dog grooming in the Olympics would look like today. We have heard they’re pushing for Sheepdog trials in Brisbane 2032, so we may yet find out!
With love,
HANG ON, we promised you a surprise ending to all of our Olympic research didn't we… Well buckle up buster!
At least seven online sites will indeed tell you that Poodle clipping was part of the 1900 Olympics, so we did begin writing this blog with very different intentions as we kept researching. All of these websites cite the same article written by Christopher Lyle for his Beijing Olympic series for a UK newspaper. But how could an Olympic event only have one source?
The answer is: it wouldn’t.
If you pop the winner's name ‘Avril’ into google translate, it will tell you that it is French for April… April Lafoule. Well we certainly feel like Lafoules! As you read earlier, the article sourced was posted on April 1st 2008 - April Fools Day.
It turns out that the whole thing was one big April Fools joke, but people loved the concept too much to research, so the story has continued getting published as fact. Our very own dog grooming ‘War of the Worlds’. Damn you, Christopher, you got us all!
Our last thought on this rollercoaster is that if people love the idea so much, maybe dog grooming really should be in the Olympics? We think maybe the International Olympic Committee should give the people what they want.
So we suppose this is your sign not to believe everything you read online… except if it’s from us that is!
With love,
Yes we promise that’s it.
igroomhub
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