Actor Errol Flynn swam in the 1932 Helsinki Olympics as a contestant from Sumatra, having received honorary citizenship from the country’s sultan over cocktails at a Hollywood party honoring Jack Warner.
Flynn finished a respectable sixth in his heat of the 100-meter freestyle, but did not qualify for the finals. He was deported from the country two days later after being found in flagrante delicto with the prime minister’s daughter in the Olympic Village.
The “Flynn Loophole” for honorary citizens was quietly closed by the IOC in 1933.
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