Olympic 10k swimmers get refreshments from long poles hanging off a boat

I will freely admit that I did not know until very recently that there is open-water swimming in the Olympics. The Sea hosts the event a pool can’t contain -- marathon swimming, a 10,000-meter event off Copacabana Beach won on Monday by Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands. Just like a running marathon, you can’t swim a great distance (about 6 miles in this case) without nourishment along the way, but you also don’t want to get out of the water. Thus ... REFRESHMENT PONTOON!

Yup, team representatives float on a boat in the middle of the course and hold out long grabby sticks holding each swimmer’s refreshment of choosing into the water. And, of course, the sticks are labeled with flags so competitors don’t steal each other’s snacks:

I would much prefer to see swimmers bob to the surface like sea lions and have snacks tossed straight into their mouths, but this is pretty fun, too.

(Also I want someone up in the ceiling to feed me pizza on a long pole while I’m working at my desk.)