Biathalon, pentathalon, triathalon, we’re familiar with these. Traditionally, the hexathlon consists of 75m hurdles, long jump, javelin, high jump, shot put and the 800m. This six album set came out in 1984 to commemorate Denmark’s unsuccessful Summer Olympics bid for the Games that ran that year. Some might recall that year Los Angeles hosted. Carl Lewis won four golds in track & Field, Brazil set a world record for the 800m, and Carlos Lopes, from Portugal, won the Marathon at the age of 37, with a time of 2:09:21, an Olympic record that stood for 24 years. It was the first gold medal ever for Portugal. Gold medal favorite, World Record holder and the then World Champion, Robert de Castella from Australia, finished in 5th place, 1:48 behind Lopes.

I didn’t remember all that, it’s neat though.

Denmark had bid in 1972 along with the USA, the UK, and Argentina, and had been laughed out by the voting committee, having never hosted even a Winter Games. Yes the Winters are full of great sports, better than the Summer in some ways. Still, finding a mountain, putting a few flags up and making icy death chutes by slapping together some planks and watering them with an old hose then saying let’s schuss! isn’t exactly that hard. And yet, Denmark hadn’t even done that. Summer was pretty damn ambitious.

Denmark sent 60 athletes to Los Angeles, and returned home with 0 gold, 3 silver and three bronze, coming in a remarkable 27th, which shows how much certain countries naturally dominate in amateur sporting events. This set of six albums was the squad’s training regime soundtrack, to hex the competition, to stand in unison against the world that thought they couldn’t organize anything since the Viking invasions. Possibly, memory of the Viking invasions was part of the worry about giving it to them. The music also came with the squad on Sony Walkman to the Games. Norgen Huffelstoop wore a Walkman in the Marathon, and can be seen briefly in archival footage ploughing along the streets to these “Fuck You, De Coubertin” patriotic hexathalon works of art. All are real Danish bands that submitted these for the Bid, in 1972, and who hoped to use them as Opening Ceremony acts.

Clockwise from top left, the Danish ’84 Fuck You de Coubertin Hexathalon, which featured on all the televised and radio coverage in Denmark in 1984:

a) Lady Banana was to be the climax of the Opening Ceremony, where the Streaplers would all be shot out of cannons greased with landyfinger bananas, an important detail, as their landing, in the middle of the (as yet unbuilt) stadium, would be slippery, so their cap-gun rivet costumes would spark and flare in random patterns as they danced to right themselves, belting out their great hit, Lady Banana. The scale model the Committee saw really didn’t do this justic, and it was a shame the member from France was so weird about it using gerbils in white, riveted jumpsuits.

b) Dyke was a slam on the Netherlands and their aggressive dairy industry, considered “Too Political” by the Committee, who didn’t even listen to the demo, or look more than a moment at the plans which involved 1,000 schoolkids dressed as cows with windmills up their asses.

c) Pajala-Hasses a charming segment for just before the countries all marched out. Germany objected hard to the plan to divert the Danube for the performance.

d) Full Pakke – an edgy segment in the opening ceremony where Scandix planned to lay on the stadium track (here seen as a road because that’s how pissed the Danes were about all of this) and possibly be run over by Mr Whippy vans while singing about acid rain and aliens. They were not playing with the full pakke. Ah, the danish sense of humour, eh?

e) Equestrian element here, with los caracoles opening ceremony act singing while navigating a mock Showjumping course. Los caracoles is Danish for “No we are not South American, and how do you like our Lone Deranger masks?” The Committe kind of loved this, until they realised the water hazard was to be full of electric eels. Issues with customs, you see.

f) That’s how mad they were.

You can get the Danish ’84 Fuck You de Coubertin Hexathalon, aka Full Pakke on Spotify, and there’s a downloadable PDF of all the Opening Ceremony plans which interesting to look at.