We are getting towards the end of the Olympic Games so a fun fact to share.

The 1936 Berlin Olympic was famous for Jesse Owens winning 4 gold medals, especially after the Nazi party wanted to not allow black & Jewish people to participate in the games.

The fun fact I wanted to share though was that the Berlin Olympics was where 2 Japanese pole vaulters created their medals of friendship.

The two athletes Shuhei Nishida & Sueo Oe achieved the exact same result after one jump-off for the silver & bronze medals. They refused to jump again and so the judges left it to the Japanese team to decide. There are different theories for how this was done but Nishida was awarded 🥈 and Oe 🥉.

Both athletes were unhappy with the official result and so when they returned to Japan they asked a jeweller to cut the medals in half. They were then welded together and so a hybrid silver-bronze medal was created for each of the men. These medals then became known as the “medals of friendship”.

Here is one of the meals: