Tug of war to compete sporadically starting in the 1960s and would become regular participants as sorority teams in the mid-1980s. The Hope College Pull is an annual tug-of-war contest held across the Black River in Holland, Michigan on the fourth Saturday after Labor Day. Competitors are 40 members of the freshman and sophomore classes. Two teams of eight, whose total mass must not exceed a maximum weight as determined for the class, align themselves at the end of a rope approximately in circumference. The rope is marked with a "centre line" and two markings to either side of the centre line. The
Tug of war at the 1900 Summer Olympics opponents. There are sources that report that the Scandinavian team won by two pulls to one, but the majority record it as a 2–0 victory. As late as 1974, the "Olympic Review" listed the United States team of John Flanagan, Robert Garrett, Truxton Hare, Josiah McCracken, Lewis Sheldon and Richard Sheldon as the gold medalists for the 1900 tug of war. A report in the Paris edition of the "New York Herald" described the tug of war contest at the Olympic Games as being "an object lesson in how not to do a thing". The report mentioned the Scandinavian team's