Olympic Puns Trivia Quiz

Answer: Beam

A beam is a big smile, but it is also a feature of the women's gymnastics events. Men don't perform on this apparatus. Ouch! The beam is only 10 centimetres or 3.9 inches wide. The gymnasts are just incredible with all the moves they perform on it. Early beams were made of polished wood, an incredibly danger choice of material that was finally banned in the 1980s. The ones used today, although still made from wood, have a leather like covering on the surface where the gymnasts perform.

Compulsory moves the gymnasts have to carry out during a beam routine in competition are quoted as follows:

"1. A connection of two dance elements, one a leap, jump, or hop with legs in
2. 180 degree split
3. A full turn on one foot
4. One series of two acrobatic skills
5. Acrobatic elements in different directions (forward/sideward and backward)
6. A dismount"

Answer: He fell off his horse

Where would a cowboy be without his horse - and the pommel horse in gymnastics is a routine only carried out by male gymnasts. Apart from the technique itself, it requires incredible strength, something that many people do not realise these gymnasts actually possess. They're all like miniature, very powerful cannon balls.

The pommel horse has been around a long, long time, back to the time of Alexander the Great and earlier. He was said to own two, but you can probably take that with a grain of salt. Originally, before evolving into gymnastic routines, the horse was used to train soldiers in the skill of mounting and dismounting from their steeds. The pommels are the two handles in the middle of this piece of equipment, much like the raised curved area on the front of a real saddle.

Routines required in competition are quoted as follows:

"1. Single leg swings and scissors
2. Circles and flairs, with and/or without spindles and handstands
3. Side and cross support travels
4. Kehrswings, wendeswings, flops and combined elements
5. Dismounts"

Answer: He had a weight on his mind

If anyone is described as having a weight on his or her mind, that person is usually full of worry and care about some concern, or simply just very depressed. Weightlifting itself is such an ancient sport that it dates right back to before the very first Olympics long ago in Greece. Once only the domain of men, weightlifters now include women as well. The dual routines in weightlifting competition are the snatch (lifting the bar from the ground to over the head in one continuous move), and the clean and jerk (a two part movement where the bar is first lifted to chest and shoulder height, and then thrust from there to the overhead).

Weightlifting was one of the first sports introduced into the modern Olympics, but interestingly, at that time, it had two different forms - both one-handed lifts and two-handed lifts. Today, weightlifting requires special types of shoes to be worn during competition. Their design includes rigidly reinforced soles in order to withstand the sudden extra VERY hefty weights suddenly bearing down on them. It's a quite fascinating sport to watch, and just a tad amusing at times.

Answer: He wanted to sock her

In Australia when we say football, we usually mean Rugby League or Union, and soccer is, well, soccer. However because the rest of world classes soccer as football or association football, this pun obligingly follows that trend. And it's no wonder the wife of the fictional soccer player above ran off with another man in the first place if that was his attitude towards her.

Played by more than 250 million people worldwide (that's amazing), this game tops the list of our globe's most popular sports, so whether you love it, or, like me, hate all football games, it seems we're stuck with it. A form of soccer was even played in China right back when BC first became AD. An attempt to standardise the rules for all football games was made at Cambridge University in 1848, but not all clubs followed them, and a second attempt fifteen later met with the same fate. It wouldn't be until 1904 that a final standardised set was accepted by all, and from that time, the game spread around the world like the Black Plague.

Answer: He bombed out

Part of the sorrowful work an air force officer has to carry out is bombing - and if you've performed a very bad dive into a pool, you've been said to have bombed out. Diving is the sport of leaping gracefully into the air, plummeting sometimes huge distance while performing somersaults and other moves, and landing smoothly into the cruel, cruel waters below. It's an excellent sport to watch, but can be incredibly dangerous if the diver misjudges the distance between himself and the board. It requires the skill of gymnastics, the ability to judge distance and air space in an instant, poise, balance and a great deal of strength.

Diving has been around for a very long time, just for fun more or less, but officially became a competition sport in England in the late 19th century. It originated from diving into the pool at the start of swimming races, and sometimes those dives covered quite a distance, up to fifty feet or more at times. How amazing is that? Over time, high diving and fancy diving, as the two branches of the sport were initially known, merged into the forms we know today - highboard and springboard diving.

Answer: His horse streaked

Streaking is the once fashionable deed of running naked through a crowd of people somewhere. Carried out either as a protest of some sort, or as a dare, or simply to prove to the world your exceptionally low IQ, we don't see it that much anymore. If a horse is streaking, it is galloping really fast and probably out of control. Horses spook easily and anything can set them off.

The art of dressage is an exhibition and competition form of riding with the purpose of showing complete mastery of rider over his or her steed as it carries out a very complicated and intricate display of orderly and disciplined movements and steps. It never ever involves streaking or galloping out of control. Its overall purpose is to make it appear as though those brilliant little horses are completing all those complicated moves with hardly any discernible input from the rider at all. It's quite breathtaking to see horse and rider working in the one smooth whole, in this sport. Pure class, in fact.

Answer: He ran up against red tape

Red tape is a term that refers to the sometimes completely unnecessary, sometimes idiotic, always massively frustrating set of rules and regulations put in place by bureaucrats in the field of governments and big business. It's as though these people have got on a red tape train they don't know how to stop, but keep creating more rules and regulations hoping to do so. Red tape can hold up any process for months at a time, or even altogether, because nobody has the sense to actually say "Enough!"

So then, any bureaucrat who was also a fine runner, but who ran up against red tape in his attempt to enter any competition? Dear me, my heart bleeds for him. Or it would except that there's probably more bureaucratic rules and regulations saying I've used up my allocated heart bleeding drops for the current financial year.

Answer: He puttered about too long

People who putter about doing unnecessary bits and pieces can often miss the boat entirely, be late for appointments, or generally be always running out of time to accomplish any task, however minor.

Shot put as a sport began back in Ancient Greece (according to Homer) as rock throwing competitions for soldiers. Perhaps this is true, who knows. It sounds logical enough. It doesn't appear to have been played in the Ancient Olympics Games though, as no written records indicate same. In fact, it appears to have come down to us from the Scottish Highland games, which date right back to the 9th century, more than anything else. From throwing rocks, this sport evolved into throwing cannonballs before finally taking the form of the object and the rules we associate with the game, in the early 1800s.

Quoted below are just SOME of the rules associated with this sport:

"1. Upon calling the athlete's name, they have sixty seconds to commence the throwing motion.
2. The athlete may not wear gloves. IAAF rules permit the taping of individual fingers.
3. The athlete must rest the shot close to the neck, and keep it tight to the neck throughout the motion.
4. The shot must be released above the height of the shoulder, using only one hand.
5. The athlete may touch the inside surface of the circle or toeboard, but must not touch the top or outside of the circle or toeboard, or the ground beyond the circle. Limbs may however extend over the lines of the circle in the air.
6. The shot must land in the legal sector (34.92°) of the throwing area.
7. The athlete must leave the throwing circle from the back."

Answer: They said it was a racist attack

Well, wouldn't you object if you were from Poland, and suddenly someone from the antipodes had the temerity to leap over your head for no reason?

Pole vaulting is said to have originated from residents who lived near marshy areas such as in the Netherlands when they needed to cross over large wet portions of ground in a hurry. Instead of walking all the way to the nearest bridge, they learned to leap over these areas with the aid of a large pole. This eventually evolved into pole vaulting competitions in these areas, and this eventually spread out to other countries from there. Today this is a highlight of any track and field meet, including the Olympics, and it's absolutely breathtaking to see the heights champion pole vaulters can reach.

Answer: He nailed it

If someone has nailed something in colloquial diction, they have accomplished it perfectly. In the building trade, a hammer and nail have a co-dependency relationship. In sport, the hammer throw, javelin, shot put and discus throw have been a part of regular track and field events for centuries. In our modern Olympics, the hammer throw was first included in the 1900 Games and it has been with us ever since.

This rather alarming (to watch) sport now has female athletes competing in the arena for it as well. That commenced in the Sydney Olympic Games in the year 2000. Different weights of course. The length of the hammer is much the same, but the women's weight is 8lbs (approximately 4 kilos) while the men toss 16 lbs (7.25 kilos). My gosh, that's heavy. Duck!