Olympic Cities Destination Quiz (5 of 6)- Helsinki-Antwerp

Hey kids, for those of you who are not sitting at a multi-plex in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, watching "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises," we offer you free entertainment and a geography lesson as we look at the distance between Antwerp, Belgium, which hosted the Olympics way back in 1920, and Helsinki, Finland, which did the honors in 1952.

A mere 29 countries competed in Belgium, but among them was American swimmer Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968), whew glad, we double-checked the spelling!, who won gold. He would later become an actor and an icon in his native Hawaii.

In Antwerp, Italian fencer Nedo Nadi (1894-1940) won a record five gold medals in his sport.

As for the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, which had 69 countries participating, Soviet/Ukrainian gymnast Maria Gorokhovskaya (1921-2001) who might have the longest surname in Olympics history won an all-around gold medal in women's gymnastics and six medals overall. In 1990, she emigrated to Israel.

So, we are asking just how far apart these two European Olympics cities are from one another; is the answer:

A) 1,061 miles

B) 1,265 miles

C) 1,333 miles

D) 1,409 miles

Note: The above images are of the iconic Belgian comic book hero Tintin and his dog Snowy, and a member of the very unique Finnish band the Leningrad Cowboys.

Whoops, We Forgot Belgium

Well, we are posting this simply to balance this blog with our other blog "The Daily Vampire," where we made an error sending an entry meant for this blog on that one.

But, we were thinking about taking a day off from blogging tomorrow to go wash dogs at an animal shelter in Lynchburg, Va. (that is a joke, but we understand there is a great animal shelter in that city).

Alas, an image we hoped to post of Borat at the rodeo in Salem, Va., which is my hometown, as featured in the film "Borat" fell through in our Kazakhstan entry due to technical problems or perhaps a block from that particular site. (By the way, the answer is B for the question in that entry).

And, earlier today, I was able to name 24 of the 25 cities that have hosted or will host the summer Olympics in mentalfloss.com quiz. We forgot about the 1920 Antwerp Olympics. I have even been to Antwerp, Belgium, (back in 1993) but I completely forgot that the city was an Olympic host. Our apologies to Tintin, and everyone else in Belgium.

Yvonne Tousek, a former Olympic gymnast and UCLA stand-out competed for Canada, who I get to chat with every now and then, competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. She is curently performing with Cirque du Soleil.

I would say that I competed for Turkey (my late father's homeland) in greco-roman wrestling at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, when I would have been 22 years old, but I imagine the actual members of that team would not care for the joke.

Special Quote of the Day- Voltaire

Since today is Bastille Day in France, the country that brought us Tintin (just kidding, Belgium!), we thought we'd quote from the famous philosopher and plawright Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1778) whom everyone simply knows as Voltaire. And, here is the quote:

"Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need."

Of course, he said all this a few centuries before the advent of Facebook and Twitter.