10 Incredible Stories From The Summer Olympics
8. Martin Klein And Alfred Asikainen (1912)
What would you say is the length of an average WWE Iron Man match? An hour? Thirty minutes? Much like Jon Snow, they know nothing. In 1912, Russian-Estonian wrestler Martin Klein and reigning world champion Alfred Asikainen wrestled for almost twelve hours. Continuously. Outside. On a sunny day. Clearly feeling that things like hunger, fatigue, or dehydration were things that only un-manly men felt, the pair put on the longest wrestling match in history.
Klein eventually won the match after eleven hours and forty minutes of grappling, guaranteeing himself a medal. However, he was too exhausted to continue with the competition (which is somewhat unsurprising) and he conceded the final match to Sweden's Claes Johansson. Klein walked away (or more likely, crawled away) with silver, and he became the first Estonian medal-winner in history.
Alfred Asikainen on the other hand, apparently convinced to prove himself the manlier of the two men, went on to wrestle again, and won the match for the bronze medal.