He broke a record, but got bronze. Why?

Matt Parker, Bill Sunderland and Dani Siller face a question about a record-breaking athlete that only received a bronze medal.
FULL EPISODES: Listen via www.lateralcas... or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is a clip from LATERAL, a weekly podcast about interesting questions and even more interesting answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit www.lateralcas...
GUESTS:
Matt Parker: ‪@standupmaths‬, / standupmaths
Bill Sunderland: ‪@consumethismedia‬, / escthispodcast
Dani Siller: ‪@consumethismedia‬, / escthispodcast
HOST: Tom Scott.
QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.
RECORDED AT & EDITED BY: The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
EDITOR: Julie Hassett.
GRAPHICS SYSTEM & DESIGN: Chris Hanel at Support Class.
GRAPHICS ASSISTANCE: Dillon Pentz.
MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com).
ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Josh Halbur, Ben Justice, Lewis Tough, Arun Uttamchandani, Eglė Vaškevičiūtė.
FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
© Pad 26 Limited (www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2022.

[@lateralcast]

Listen to full episodes every week: www.lateralcast.com/ Support the show and spread the word, so that we can bring you more 'Lateral' episodes, clips and extra versions.

[@jackeea_]

These videos are clearly aimed at the demographic who don't have the time to watch a 42 minute video, but do have the time to watch 7 videos that are 6 minutes long each

[@Epinardscaramel]

😁

[@whyamiwastingmytimeonthis]

Heyyyy that’s me

[@SethsTable]

Guilty

[@ashleyh7755]

So, me? 😂

[@oldmanofsacramento]

One could also, conceivably, break/make a world record in the 'heats' or 'qualifying' rounds which would stand as a record even if you fail miserably in the 'finals' or the 'medal' rounds of that event.

[@zorakj]

I thought it could be that, or an event where you do it twice and it gets averaged, like vaults in gymnastics.

[@xpehkto]

I like the CollegeHumor's approach: most of their shows have separate channels for shorts and for full episodes.

[@andrewmunro8830]

And I really appreciate that!

[@NoNameAtAll2]

except youtube removed "channels" tab, so good luck finding other channels now :/

[@Anzy.99]

​@@NoNameAtAll2yep, that really sucks. but I'm glad I subbed to them all before they did that. KZbin is getting worst instead of improving.

[@Julio974]

I originally thought it was about breaking a world record in an earlier round, but losing in the finals

[@Stuartdouglas19]

my guess was based on the fact that in the olympic long jump, they have the preliminary round and then top 12 come back for the final - with the jumps reset. so I guessed that he'd broken the record in the prelimary round, but then only got 3rd in the acutal final.

[@Zwiebelgian]

Please mark clips as such

[@TerribleUsernameAmirite]

Polite and succinct.

[@jorin8297]

I think its a good thing the thumbnail already says highlight. Putting it into the title too as a mention would be nice though.

[@Zwiebelgian]

@@jorin8297 I didn‘t even notice that

[@fltchr4449]

In 2000 Carey Hart spent his second scoring run in the finals of the motocross Gravity Games on a single backflip, the first ever. He didn't score well enough for a medal but everyone went wild and it set a new tone for the sport.

[@Anzy.99]

wow, Mr Pink did an awesome thing

[@zsoltturi6989]

Repost! How can i set the notifications just to get updated with the new episodes, but not the highlights?

[@NihlusKryik]

The ability to only get notifications for certain uploads is a technology that KZbin has yet to figure out

[@zsoltturi6989]

@@NihlusKryik So the 21st century is here, i see. :D

[@thephysicistcuber175]

Other possibilities: 1) He broke the WR, but not in the final round. 2) He broke the WR single in the final round, but you'd be ranked based on mean of x or average of x.

[@Daniel-ib5nt]

Ok, sorry, love the show but i dont need every episode 3 times in my abo box, or even 6 times if all questions get released as their own clips.

[@brianvernaglia9449]

Agree with everyone else. I watched the whole episode. I don't need to watch little pieces of the episode over and over again.

[@tom_eldridge]

I dont mind as long as it is marked as such

[@listey]

So don't watch it then? Surely it's not more complex than that...

[@lucy-h]

@@listey just mainly got confused thinking it was a new episode haha

[@Wouter10123]

Yup, I've been down voting, reporting and hiding them. I don't want this to clutter up my sub box.

[@brianvernaglia9449]

@@tom_eldridge I won't.

[@1maaaks]

I think, some of us (not sure about myself, but maybe someone) would be less angry about the whole highlights thing if the thumbnails were more distinct from the full videos. For example, they could use purple without orange or something like that. Then subscribers could try to get used to the fact that purple thumbnails are something that they unfortunately see in their feeds but never watch, while purple+orange is something worth clicking.

[@1maaaks]

I mean, the difference should be in the whole thumbnail, not just the small caption under the caption.

[@MF-fd2ug]

Rhombic Decathlon is a brilliant gag

[@seailz]

It would be cool if the title was “(title) [HIGHLIGHT]”

[@listey]

It's right there in the thumbnail. I'm not sure why people are struggling so much with this.

[@AllanSavolainen]

I would recommend putting the full episodes on a separate playlist, tad annoying to get notifications on these shorts

[@SasquachPL]

Tom is the world champion of interesting trivia. Lord of things you might not've known.

[@killerexe007]

My guess was that the record was not for the jump, but for the number of Bronze medals

[@DannyHodge95]

Aww, I thought that 2 people then matched his world record, and they all drew in third. Was so sure I was right 😭

[@PKSullivan]

Wait, you didn't even mention that LeGendre (the football/baseball star from Georgetown who broke the world long jump record during the pentathlon where he took home bronze after failing to qualify for the long jump event and later failed to become a Hollywood icon and so fell back into dentistry as a profession) died at the AGE OF 33.

[@harshilpatel684]

Achieving the long jump record as part of the Triple jump was my answer

[@bioLarzen]

My first thought was that he actually got a "gold medal" and "bronze" here meant the actual material of the medal - we know "gold" and "silver" medals aren't actually made of gold/silver, but usually of a less precious metal (often bronze) and are only gold/silver plated - but it was killed when Tom confirmed that "he came third".

[@markboots_]

My thought was that he only had the world record for a brief moment because the number 1 and 2 still had to go

[@k1llwizzy]

the other show is QI, most episodes are available online, if Tom can like this message to confirm it would be epic.

[@louisnorred8530]

My mind locked into the "at the event" portion of the question - I assumed someone elsewhere beat him and they decided to give the gold medal to that technical non-competitor instead.

[@erictaylor5462]

There is a scene in Superman where Clark Kent is in high school and he gets disrespected by the football team. In frustration he kicks the ball through the uprights and the ball just keeps goin and going for miles. I remembers thinking, Yea, coaches always say, give it your best effort, but we are talking about Superman here. His best effort would be way past what was needed to win, but Clark wouldn't need to use his best effort. He just needs to do well enough to beat the other guys. He'd be an extraordinary athlete, but not necessarily superhuman. You don't need to kick 100 yard field goals. 35 or 40 yards would be enough. And if he's playing offense he wouldn't need to kick field goals at all. Just give him the ball on third down and he could get to the first down line every time. On defense no one could ever get by him or out run him. He needn't show that he could always do much much better.

[@oliknight2223]

My first thought was that he was participating in the high jump, and he'd lost some height in favor of length so he ended up losing the gold.

[@SVoided]

I thought the answer was gonna be he created the Parker Jump 🤣

[@webchimp]

Just for Dani, in the first modern Olympics there were no golds, all the winners got a silver medal.

[@fireproofman]

'There's a lot of stories to that mans life' sounds like a great wikipedia articles that might need citations

[@seanmcnew18]

My guess was that he jumped from before the line, so the overall jump was a record setter, but from the line to landing, only got him 3rd place.

[@somniad]

hehe, this is the first one where I've seen the thumbnail and thought I had the answer! I thought the record was for getting the most lifetime bronze medals

[@joeldeakin2003]

My original guess was that he wasn't last to compete so he jumped, set the record, and then 2 other guys who took part after him also somehow manage to break the record at the same event, leading to him getting 3rd place lol

[@TestarossaF110]

What a guy, wow. Soo many stories indeed.

[@dyent]

The technicality was my initial guess, because I randomly know that the wind has to be below a certain speed (10mph gusts, I think) for it to be a valid record

[@MartinAhlman]

For once I new the answer to a sports question right, no need to think even! This is a very special day for me, I shall remember it for ever. No, not really, not forever. But I knew the answer as soon as I heard it. Some things just stick in my mind, usually useless ones. Thank you for this question, Tom!

[@JoseAlcerreca]

My guess was that the first and second also broke the world records, but they simply jumped after him.

[@brandonm8901]

"which no one surpassed at the event" was in the question though....

[@brandonm8901]

Did anyone else get it from the title alone?

[@gamesetmatt23]

Got this within about 5 seconds. Pretty simple, really.

[@AdriaanZwemer]

I love a five-event pentathlon - unlike those pesky four-event pentathlons?

[@billdanbury]

Tom @4:30 might say he is experiencing Technical Difficulties… ?

[@ishashka]

My guess was similar, but that it was an event that didn't even involve long jump, he just jumped really far when doing something else

[@Stirdix]

I got it, but also had the thought that it might have been a part of a team event of some sort and his team didn't match up.

[@talos935]

I was thinking it was smashed qualifier/heats and they did meh in the finals

[@evernewb2073]

iirc the third jump in the triple jump often beats the long jump record because there is more stored energy in the motion but that could _easily_ be misinformation I've absorbed...also that would not count for the long-jump world record unless the wording of this question is way off.

[@billmoore_n5z]

As I recall under track & field rules a long jump contestant must land for the attempt to qualify. You have to make a dent in the sand for measurement.

[@cybergeek11235]

Aw, nuts. I was gonna guess that it was a three-way tie.

[@ipha]

oh yay. the same video. a third time.

[@Junebilation7900]

My first guess was that the man was just reaally tall & that made the difference for the world record, but wouldn't have counted in the event

[@yhubtfufvcfyfc]

Please don't do this for all of them. It's just redundant.

[@SharienGaming]

i guessed that he was actually sprinting and longjumped the last bit in a desperate attempt to beat the others... but only came third, but accidentally did a record longjump XD also i now really want to know how someone who is a world record longjumper does not qualify for the longjumping event O_o like...was he just not feeling like it?

[@jello3456543]

Quite a few years ago now (I forget which year) there was a TON of pre-Olympics advertising in the US hyping these two American sprinters (I've also forgotten their names, I suck at anecdotes, but anyway), they're going to win it all, the rest of the world is competing for bronze, etc. Then... one of them failed to qualify. Qualifying is quite often a single specific event, and if you just happen to be having an off day that day, you get to watch the Olympics from the comfort of your own home.

[@TheFartfish]

And here we have some delicious food for the algorithm ;-)

[@DeepseaGaming1000]

Why are people surprised that a 6 minute video isn't an entire podcast? The thumbnail says highlight, and if you watched the full podcast, you probably know this topic was covered. This video is clearly here for people who didn't watch the full thing

[@johnwisdomtv]

Why do you assume people read thumbnails?

[@BeefinOut]

The issue isn't that people think it's a random 6-minute mini-podcast, the issue is that people don't want notifications for things they've already seen. Knowing that it's a highlight doesn't prevent it from being an annoyance in your subscription feed.

[@1maaaks]

Also, why do you assume anyone is happy seeing more noise in their feed? I have enough noise there. Tom Scott's noise is more forgivable than most of other noise, but still, I sould like for all channels, including Tom Scott's channels, to produce less noise.

[@DeepseaGaming1000]

If you're complaining about getting too many notifications from Tom Scott because he posted two videos a couple of days apart, you really must have an interesting and eventful life

[@1maaaks]

I have a really eventful Subscriptions feed, that's for sure. Tom Scott is not the only youtuber I am subscribed to, and he is not the only one who publishes short versions of what I've already watched. This accumulates into a mess.

[@qtheplatypus]

What does it say on tom’s mike?

[@andrewmunro8830]

Think it says "The Podcast Studios"

[@alexortiz9777]

I got it!

[@TestarossaF110]

My guess was something discriminatory to whatever happened. They should've gave him an honorary something or another 😅.

[@MrNoName7474]

Easy, the medals went out in order of who was doping the least since they all failed their drug test.

[@ragnkja]

“The five-event pentathlon”; as opposed to what? A pentathlon has five events by definition.

[@bl4cksp1d3r]

I think it was more of a explanation of the word.

[@shashwatsharma2596]

An event where the contestant has to change 5 pairs of pants, while running of course.