» About     » Archive     » Authors     » Search     » Random     » Statistics     » Forum     » RSS Feed     Updates Monday-Friday

No. 843: T. Rex pronounces it with the stress on "pen"

First | Previous | 2021-07-29 | Next | Latest

T. Rex pronounces it with the stress on

First | Previous | 2021-07-29 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/dinosaur/?comic=843

Strip by: manyhills

Title: Olympic Games Explained with T. Rex
T. Rex: Today: modern pentathlon!
T. Rex: Tests the required skills for a fin de siècle cavalry officer behind enemy lines!
T. Rex: That is: swimming, running, shooting, fencing, and riding an unfamiliar horse. Over showjumps.
Dromiceiomimus: In recent Olympics, the running and laser pistol shooting are combined into a dramatic finale: the laser-run.
T. Rex: Laser-run? I've been wasting time caring about tennis and hockey when all this time there's been a sport called LASER-RUN?
Utahraptor: We're not talking Zeta-Jones in Entrapment here. And it was only renamed that recently.
T. Rex: What was it called before?
Utahraptor: Run-shoot.
T. Rex: Run-shoot.
T. Rex: Come back hockey, all is forgiven.

The author writes:

While there are many Olympic sports that are essentially several sports rammed together - triathlon, eventing, even medley swimming if you think about it - I'll concede that modern pentathlon is the most artificial of them. But when the guy who artificed the sport is also the guy who artificed the modern Olympic movement, it does confer some degree of legitimacy by association.

You might wonder how exactly one ends up being a modern pentathlete - going on a lot of adventure holidays as a child? or perhaps just being a bit posh? - but it looks like the answer is, rather prosaically, being good at running and swimming until someone suggests you should try shooting and fencing as well.