If you think the Olympics have gotten a little too serious, allow me to introduce an event from the “we were just making stuff up” era: Plunge for distance.
Here’s the whole sport: you take a from-standstill dive, go face-down underwater, and then… do absolutely nothing. No stroking, no kicking, no swimming. Just glide on vibes for up to 60 seconds (or until you pop up). Distance is measured from the starting line to the farthest point of your body at the end of that glide.
And yes… this is the only Olympic-adjacent “athletic” event where having extra body fat was basically considered a competitive advantage, because better buoyancy helped you carry farther. Iconic.
It was a legit thing in late 1800s/early 1900s swimming meets in the United States and the United Kingdom… and then it got exactly one moment on the world stage: the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis.
Only five competitors entered (all Americans), and William Dickey took gold with 62 feet 6 inches, by essentially doing the world’s most committed underwater trust fall.
So yes: bring it back. Give me a pool, a stopwatch, and a “no swimming, just floating” rule. It’s the perfect event for anyone whose biggest athletic skill is “existing in water.”
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