Hoax Museum Blog: Sports

Enormous Wave Video — When I first saw this movie clip of a guy surfing a huge wave (windows media player file), I figured it had to be fake, especially since the wave just seems to get bigger and bigger as the camera pans out. But on second thought, I think it's real. Waves in Hawaii or Australia can get huge, and some of those surfers are insane enough to surf them. This clip seems to be footage from the surfing documentary Billabong Odyssey.

The Perfect Moment — Photographers strive to capture the perfect moment on film, and this comes about as close as any picture I've seen recently. The picture definitely looks real, though I don't know any details about it. When it was taken? Where? etc. (via J-Walk)

Seal-Hunting Tourism — Is Norway really going to start promoting seal-hunting tourism? Apparently it is, if this article in Aftenposten can be believed (and I don't see any reason not to believe it). Here in San Diego seals are treated pretty much like royalty, and seal-watching is a major tourist attraction, especially in La Jolla (advice for tourists: the seals at seal island are fun to watch, but they stink to high heaven). So the idea of shipping in tourists to hunt seals seems bizarre... a bit like organizing kitten-hunting expeditions (or raising kittens inside of glass jars). No word yet on whether Norwegians consider seal-hunting to be a religion, but I suppose that's next.

The Free Church of Country Sports — The British government's decision to ban hunting is encountering stiff opposition from pro-hunting groups. While I was over there this issue was constantly on the news (especially when a group of hunting advocates managed to disrupt a session of the House of Commons). But now British hunting enthusiasts have adopted a novel defense of their pasttime. They've formed the Free Church of Country Sports, which is an ecumenical group that views hunting as a form of worship. Therefore, they claim, a ban on hunting would violate their religious rights. They're also arguing that a hunting ban would be racially discriminatory since, as this article puts it, "those who take part in country sports are sufficiently culturally different to be considered a social group with an ethnic identity." So far, the British government doesn't seem to be buying these arguments. But then, it was also slow to recognize Jedi-ism as a religion, wasn't it?

Eye Squirting — About a week ago Turkish construction worker Ilker Yilmaz set the world record for squirting milk out of his eye, projecting it a full 9.2 feet. The sport of eye squirting is definitely a new one to me. If someone had told me about this I would have sworn they were joking, but the story has appeared in numerous papers and there's even pictures of Yilmaz with the milk coming out of his eye. So looks like it's real. Of course, only a very few people who are born with the appropriately anomalous tear glands can participate in the sport. However, sponsors are already lining up behind it. Yilmaz, for instance, was sponsored by Kay Sut, a Turkish milk company (seeing milk spray out of some guy's eye really makes me thirsty for a glass of the stuff). Maybe someday in the future eye squirting will become an Olympic event.

1912 Olympics Lost Runner — An interesting comment was left by 'Nello' on the Top 100 April Fool's Day hoaxes board regarding the 26-day Marathon (in which a British paper reported that a Japanese runner thought he had to run for 26 days, not 26 miles, and was spotted still running on the country roads of England). Since it involves a story from the Olympics I thought it was especially timely. Here it is:

A real story coming out of the Stockholm marathon at the Olympics in 1912
involved a Japanese runner named Kanikuri, who simply disappeared during the
race. Nobody had any idea of what became of him until 50 years later, when
Kanikuri finally appeared to explain how and why he went AWOL. He was about
halfway through the marathon, when he took some well-meaning spectators up
on their offer to stop for a drink. Embarrassed by his lack of discipline,
Kanikuri abruptly hopped on a tram and left for home without a word to
anyone.
This has really happened!!! In Sweden years after the olympics, people still
claimed they had seen him, still running.

Saddles for REAL MEN! — Wimpy men ride on soft, padded bicycle seats. Real men ride on rock-hard seats. Literally. Sheldon Brown is selling Real MAN © Saddles made out of solid granite from Canada's rugged Gaspé peninsula. In order to qualify for purchase of this product, a chemical analysis of your blood will be performed to determine that your testosterone level is high enough to ride the Real MAN © saddle. (via Red Ferret)

Extreme Sport: Meat-Hook Dangling — Kids nowadays! What will they think of next? Reuters is reporting that a popular new pasttime amongst youngsters in the Florida Keys is to dangle themselves from meat hooks attached to bamboo tripods set up at the beach, and then just hang out that way for a while. Apparently the Coast Guard found "a young woman, her feet brushing the surface of the shallow water, dangled from the frame, hooks embedded firmly in her shoulders." I don't know. I thought I had come across some pretty strange things in my time, but meat-hook dangling definitely took me by surprise. But then, when I was over the initial shock, I immediately thought of the sport of Monkey Fishing, which Slate.com wrote about back in 1996. Monkey Fishing (which also, according to Slate, was popular down in the Florida Keys) involves rowing up to the island of Lois Key which contains a population of wild monkeys, attaching a piece of fruit to a fishing line, throwing the fruit to the monkeys, waiting until the monkeys impale themselves on the hook when they try to eat the fruit, and then yanking the poor animals into the water. Monkey Fishing, of course, turned out to be a hoax which Slate was taken in by. So could meat-hook dangling be the new monkey fishing? Reuters says that the Coast Guard vouches for the reality of meat-hook dangling, but I'd like to see some pictures and get a little more proof before I totally accept this story.

Future NBA Star Chimezie Kudu — ESPN recently offered up a strange story about Chimezie Kudu, a 7-foot 11 South African entering the NBA draft. Chimezie almost missed the filing for the draft, since his application was written in an obscure Hottentot dialect. And despite his size, Chimezie's future success hardly seems guaranteed. He's never actually played competitive basketball before, though he has been playing the game for a while. He practices shots "on a single hoop in a local park in his native land -- the rim made out of antelope horn, the netting from the skin of a zebra." Oh, and the ball he plays with isn't quite NBA standard. It's made out of fused sheep's testicles.

Real or Fake? - Running Kilts — They're the latest in Scottish sports technology: running kilts. The instant solution to chafing shorts. They sound kind of like a joke, but actually they're real. And once you get over feeling silly when you first put them on, they're reportedly very comfortable. They actually sound very practical, but still, I would hesitate to wear them to the gym, or to wear them on a windy day.

Michael Vick Isn’t Gay — A link to this story alleging that Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has declared himself gay has been spreading around via email. Of course, it isn't true. After all, it's a Global Associated News story (Global Associated News being a website that allows you to create your own fake news stories). But it looks real enough to have been convincing quite a few people.
Outsports.com reports that they've been receiving many inquiries about it.

Update (May 7, 2004): As this rumor has continued to spread via the internet, Michael Vick felt compelled to call into a radio show in an effort to end the gossip.

Fingers in Eyes — Alex Knight sent in a link to this picture from Yahoo! News, which is one of those images that looks fake, even though it's real (warning: the full-sized image may definitely make you cringe). It reminds me of the 'finger through the nose and out the eye' picture which was going around about a year ago, and which was definitely fake.

The Real Bobby Mason — Bobby Mason, former professional football player for the Wolverhampton Wanderers, was quite a celebrity in Southbourne. Problem is, Bobby Mason wasn't really Bobby Mason. He was an imposter who had been posing as the football player. The real Bobby Mason was quite shocked to learn that someone had been living as him for so long.

Liver of George Best — Any self-respecting British soccer fan will know the legendary George Best. They also know that Best enjoyed his drink. And so it should be no surprise that his liver, which was recently put up for auction on eBay, looks rather diseased and unhealthy. The seller claims that the liver was "recovered from the incinerator organ bin at London's Cromwell Hospital in July 2002." He also cautions that it's "not suitable for transplant or for serving with bacon and onion gravy." So the question is, is this really George Best's liver? I don't know. I guess only a dna test would answer that question. But it looks suspiciously like calf's liver to me. The item is no longer for sale, probably because it was pulled by eBay for being so obviously fake.

Fake Soccer Team — The El Salvadorean soccer team showed up in Zimbabwe to play a game against the team from Zimbabwe. Just one problem. It wasn't the El Salvadorean team. It was just a bunch of players masquerading as the national team. The score, by the way, was a tie: 0-0. This reminds me of the Moscow Philharmonic Hoax.

The Birth of Rugby — According to legend, the sport of Rugby was born in 1823 when a schoolboy at Rugby School named William Webb Ellis picked up the ball during a football game and started running with it. But according to an interesting piece in the 'Questions Answered' section of the London Times, this legend is probably a hoax. Unfortunately I can't link to the piece, so I've cut and pasted the relevant paragraph:

There is very little evidence to support the assertion that William Webb Ellis was the first person to pick up the ball and run with it. In 1876 Martin Bloxam, who had left Rugby in 1820, wrote an account for the school magazine based on hearsay. This was immediately contested by a peer of Webb Ellis from his schooldays. In 1895 the Old Rugbeians of the RFU set up a committee to try to keep the game in their control. They accepted the hearsay rather than a contemporary account. The journalist J. L. Manning investigated the investigators and concluded that the story was a perfect hoax and that the Old Rugbeians had falsified the history of rugby. By this time Webb Ellis himself was dead and unable to confirm or deny the story. Several witnesses, including Thomas Hughes, of Tom Brown's Schooldays fame, contested the Webb Ellis story but their account was left out of the report. The committee completed the hoax by having the commemorative stone cut and placed in the headmaster's garden.

George Plimpton (1927-2003) — George Plimpton, creator of Sidd Finch (which came in at number 3 on my list of the greatest April Fool's day hoaxes of all time), has died. He was 76 years old.

Carl Lewis Isn’t Dead — Olympic track star Carl Lewis was reported to have been killed in a bicycle accident in this news report. But actually Lewis is just fine. The report is a phony, rigged up by a biking enthusiast to draw attention to an abutment in a Houston park that he considers dangerous.

Cassius Clay and the Phantom Punch — Did Sonny Liston throw fights to Cassius Clay in 1964 and 1965? Many feel that Clay's 1965 victory, in particular, was prearranged, with Liston falling to the mat in the first round following a "phantom punch." Mike Dunn, of EastSideBoxing.com discusses the lingering controversy.

Would you hire this man? — A British reporter manages to get a job guarding Serena Williams even though he submitted a fake CV with his application. No one bothered to check his references.