What’s tougher than competing in an Olympic sport? Competing in two

In the early days of the Olympic Games, it was not uncommon for competitors to participate in multiple sports.

At the loosely organized 1904 Olympic Games, where the United States won at least 230 (sources differ due to the uncertain citizenship of many participants) of the 280 medals awarded over nearly five months as a side event to the World’s Fair in St. Louis, Franz Kugler became the only man who wins medals in three sports at the same Games – reaching the podium in wrestling, weightlifting and tug-of-war. In 1908, eight American athletes in track and field – including Irish-born legend of hammer throwing Matt McGrath – participated in the tug of war, but to withdraw in protest about the boots worn by the Liverpool Police team, who later lost to their fellow police officers from London. Many events were unofficial “demonstration sports,” like the Baseball Games of 1912 with even more American track and field athletes.

Nowadays it is much less common to participate in two sports in the same summer. A Guardian analysis of data from the Olympic statistics site Olympiadia No athlete has competed in dual roles at the same Summer Olympics since 1992 (athletes such as cyclist/rower Rebecca Romero and baseball player/speed skater Eddy Alvarez have won medals in two sports at different Olympic Games).

That drought will end on Wednesday, pollution permitting, when triathlete-cyclist Taylor Knibb competes in the women’s triathlon in Paris, four days after finishing 19th in the road time trial., where she crashed several times on a slippery day in Paris.

Olympic cyclists are often well-suited to multiple challenges. Kristen Faulkner and her American teammate Chloé Dygert, who won bronze in the time trial last week, will compete in the road race on August 4 and then take to the velodrome two days later to compete together in the women’s team pursuit. Knibb also qualified for the road race, but USA Cycling has announced that she will will give up her space in that race to Faulkner. Faulkner is the american champion and has a lot of experience in the tough world of a road race peloton, unlike Knibb.

But Dygert, Faulkner and the hundreds of other road and track cyclists (or, less often, mountain bikers or BMX riders) are not considered dual-sport athletes, because Olympic terminology makes a distinction between participating in two sports. disciplines and two different sport. This distinction is based on which sports are controlled by which federations, so it is not always clear. Bobsleigh and skeleton are under the same federation, while luge is not.

Such distinctions are not always recognized, however. Skier/snowboarder Ester Ledecka is generally considered the first woman to win gold medals in two sports at the same Olympic Games, even though her two sports, alpine skiing and snowboarding, are sponsored by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation. The men with two gold medals in seemingly different sports from the same winter – Norwegians Thorleif Haug (1924, Nordic combined and ski jumping) and Johan Grøttumsbråten (1928, Nordic combined and cross-country skiing) – also competed in two sports under the same umbrella.

And because World Aquatics oversees anything that involves someone entering the water without the assistance of a boat, we can’t technically call athletes like Duke Kahanamoku world champions. record breaking relay swimmer and water polo player – “two-sport” competitors. If Kahanamoku, considered the “Surfer of the century“Had he lived a century later, he might have been able to ride the waves to the official status of two sports.

Knibb’s combination seems inherently logical, competing in a multi-event sport (triathlon) and one of its events (cycling). The last two-sport Summer Olympians before her began similar doubles in fencing and modern pentathlon decades ago. The Winter Olympics still occasionally have a cross-country skier who tries her hand at biathlon or vice versa. Sheila Taormina, the only woman to compete in three official sports in the Olympic Games, gradually expanding her repertoire from swimming to triathlon to modern pentathlon. (Dutch athlete Truus Klapwijk participated in swimming, diving and water polo (in the 1920s, but the latter was not an official event at the time.)

Still, Knibb will be the first athlete to compete in cycling and triathlon in her career, let alone at one Olympic Games, said data on the Olympic statistics site OlympiadiaTaormina is one of two Olympic triathletes who also competed in swimming at the Games.

Knibb already has one triathlon medal, a silver medal in the mixed relay in Tokyo. This year’s relay is on August 5th and although she has not yet been officially selected for the team, the visions of a repeat medal this time were certainly strengthened when she handed her second cycling event to Faulkner and was not in a 158 km bike race this includes a climb on a paved road with a gradient of 6.5%.

Not that Knibb lacks stamina. She is a two-time world champion in the Ironman 70.3 (1.9 km swim, 90 km bike, 21.1 km run). She has also competed in the full Ironman World Championship, which doubles all of those distances, finish fourth.

A good omen for Knibb: other athletes who have hit doubles have ended up on the podium. Three-time Olympian fencer Paul Pesthy won his only medal in the modern pentathlon team event in 1964 (silver), when he also made his fencing debut. Another three-time Olympic fencer, Harold Rayner, won his only fencing medal In 1920, the same year, he also participated in the pentathlon.

Knibb didn’t win gold in the time trial. But Ledecka wasn’t expected to win gold in the skis either. It was worth it: the more events athletes compete in, the more chances they have.

Other Notable Multi-Sport Olympians

— Franz Kugler is the only man who wins medals in three sports (tug of war, weightlifting, wrestling) at the same Olympic Games, albeit at the random Games of 1904.

— Six athletes have won medals at the Winter and Summer Games in various sports:

• American boxer turned bobsledder Eddie Eagan is still the only Olympian to have won gold at both Olympic Games in different disciplines. (Figure skater Gillis Grafström won gold at the Summer and Winter Olympics, but in the same event – ​​until the Winter Olympics were first held in 1924 – figure skating was held in the summer.)

• The Norwegian Jacob Tullin Thams had a similar esoteric combinationwhere he won gold in ski jumping and silver in sailing.

• Cycling and skating are a more common combination. Canadian Clara Hughes earned multiple medals in every sportwhile East German Christa Luding-Rothenburger will remain the only person to win Winter and summer medals in the same yearunless the IOC makes a surprise change to the Olympic calendar.

• Bobsleigh is a popular secondary sport for track and field athletes, but American sprinter Lauryn Williams is the only person to medals in both sports.

— Rebecca Romero won a medal in rowing and track cycling in 2004 and 2008, when he joined the East German swimmer who became a handball player Roswitha Krause and several swimmers/divers as two-sport medal winners.

— Surprisingly, Japan’s Ayuma Hirano is still the only athlete to have participated in this tournament. snowboarding and skateboardingShaun White wanted to make the Tokyo skateboarding team, but decided to focus on snowboarding.

–Whether the future General George Patton was actually part of the American fencing team of 1912 is the question for discussionjust like the question of whether one of his failed shots in the pentathlon actually went through a hole in the goal created by his insist on using a larger caliber pistol.

— And we can’t forget Pita Taufatofua, who proudly waved the Tongan flag in three opening ceremonies while shirtless and covered in oil. He competed in taekwondo in 2016 and 2021, with a stint in cross-country skiing in between. He attempted to qualify for the 2024 Olympics in taekwondo and canoe sprint, but came up short and vowed save his coconut oil supply for another time.