How far can you float? was once an Olympic event
It was known as ‘plunge for distance’ and was a popular sport in the late 19th and early 20th century and was once an Olympic event. It involved diving into a pool and seeing how far you could float. The world record was 62 feet.
Fat people tended to fair better because they had more momentum and so the plunge for distance ‘athletes’ became fatter and fatter. Eventually the event was dropped because spectators found it boring. One writer described it as “not an athletic event at all,” but instead a competition favouring “mere mountains of fat who fall in the water more or less successfully and depend upon inertia to get their points for them.”
