We all witnessed the disaster that was Break Dancing in The Olympics.

Jeez …. Who could have predicted that?

Um ….. ME !!!!!

But I praise the higher powers for noting that Break Dancing in itself is NOT an Olympic sport and ruled it out of the 2028 Olympic Games.

Did it deserve a 2^nd chance?

Absolutely not.

Reasons #2, #3, #4 and #5 aside, the #1 reason it should not be an Olympic sport is that it is judged.

               *Side Note 1 – We all know how I feel about judged sports.

There have been some sports that had an abysmal Olympic debut, yet they managed to reorganize the event and went on to have great Olympic moments.

One such Olympic event is the marathon.

The Olympic Marathon is now heralded as one of the highlights of any Olympic Games – but it didn’t start that way.

The 1904 Marathon at the St. Louis Olympics is often cited as one of the worst performances in Olympic history, embodying not only chaos and mismanagement, but utter confusion as well.

Yes, when ranked as “Olympic moment failures”, the 1904 Marathon is ranked as worse than 2024 Break Dancing.

The event was poorly organized from the start, with city officials, none of them runners, took no advise from the Olympic Committee.  An improvised route that left runners navigating a dangerous and unsanctioned course.   

The race course was not marked out well, with pedestrians crossing the course and lingering about in intersections that had many runners either stopping to allow the pedestrians to cross or getting confused and going the wrong way.  Many pedestrians did not even know a race was going on.

The race began at 3 PM, the hottest time of the day, and the lack of hydration stations left competitors dangerously dehydrated.

The conditions were abysmal, with much of the course being unpaved, leading to a choking cloud of dust and exhaust fumes from the lead car. Runners struggled under these harsh circumstances, with several collapsing from exhaustion and injuries.  It was reported that 2 runners got struck by cars and 1 runner got in a fight with a pedestrian after running into the pedestrians dog.

Among the notable characters was Thomas Hicks, who, despite his eventual win, was injected with a dubious concoction of rat poison, brandy, and egg whites to keep him going.  Now, I know athletes have odd diets that they consume in training and on the day of competition, but jeesh …….

Thomas got through it, finishing the race limping and had to be carried across the line.  Now, I don’t understand the rules back in the day, but in present day racing, you must cross the finishing line unassisted.

The runner who initially crossed first, Fred Lorz, infamously quit midway through the race, hitchhiking part of the way back before re-entering and finishing the race to be mistakenly declared the winner.

Additionally, the only Cuban runner, who had gambled away his funds the night before, showed up in street clothes after hitchhiking to the venue. He ate rotten apples along the way, fell ill, yet still managed to place fourth.

And to top it all off, South African athletes faced wild dogs on the course, adding another layer of absurdity to the event.

Due to this disastrous experience, the Olympic committee seriously considered abolishing the marathon event altogether for future Olympics.

But cooler heads prevailed and the Olympic Marathon is now one of the highlights of any Olympic Games.

Break Dancing will NOT be making any future highlight reels.

• Seriously