All I can imagine is a Pythonesque sketch of early-20th Century artists sitting at easels -- maybe stretching their canvases -- in a sports field, waiting expectantly for the starter pistol. An anticipatory quiet descends over the stadium. Paint! A frantic mixing of paint and blur of brush stokes, as the artists get underway. The crowd goes wild as the Dutch team get down their first layers of colour. Scenes of panic as the Americans trip and their easels tumble to the ground; paint and turpentine flowing over the track. The French Impressionists, who stalled out of the gate mixing Absinthe, make a sudden surge as their choices of colour and shape materialise on the canvas. It's all to play for when, all of a sudden, the surrealist cubists come out of nowhere and win by, what I think, is a nose.

Weird to see this here. My grandfather is listed ('36 gold in composition). If I remember his diaries correctly, he seemed to appreciate it mostly because it meant he had beaten the other German composers.

Mixed Martial Art take another meaning

Of course not once, but twice the organizing competition's architect won the architecture or town planning prize.

It would be pretty cool to bring these competitions back.

I guess it's tough because art cannot be objectively judged.

But neither can figure skating or the high jump, so maybe it's feasible.

The podcast 99% percent invisible did a nice episode on the history of art in the Olympics. I forget which episode but you can find it by googling.

You know what would REALLY be a cool competition?

Who can build [X] the fastest, from scratch. Could be a house, clothes, food, etc. Known objective, and meritocratic.