When I was a kid, every Spring I couldn't wait for class 'Intramurals' which was our Elementary School's version of the Olympics that pitted one grade level against another for the privilege of owning a sweet blue, red or yellow ribbon (1st, 2nd & 3rd place respectively) with our name hand-written on it. It was a prepubescent battle of strength and wit akin to competitive patty-cake. I remember competing in some of my favorite events such as Tug-of-war, 3-Legged race and the Worm Relay (which I dominated) and day-dreaming of competing for the Untied States in the Gold Medal round. It was, of course, naive of me to consider a future as an Olympic Worm-Relayer...or was it.
Far be itfrom me, a self-confessed couch potato, to question the athletic hobbies ofothers, especially those that earn you free trips to exotic locales likeLondon. But there are certain athletic events (you can take your term ‘sport’and shove it) that are just too ridiculous to be true. To think that the 105members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sat down and voted toinclude these superior feats of strength, will and stamina is beyondimaginable. Did I say strength, will andstamina? I meant unwatchable feats of clownish tenacity. I imagine the IOC Inclusion Committeeconversation went something like this:
IOC President: We propose new events that make runners intowalkers and hurdlers into pit-jumpers.
German delegation: Ja!
French Delegation: Oui!
Spanish Delegate: Si!
English Delegate: Cheerio!
IOC President: It is passed!
So as youprepare for the 2012 London Summer Olympics, here are 5 sports that will mostcertainly be relegated to the all-important 2 A.M. time-slot on your localchannel. In other words, if you’regetting home from a late-night bender, these are 5 Olympic Events sure to testyour facetiousness fortitude.
1. Race Walking
Yes, walking like you really have to go to the bathroom butare trying really hard to hold in the contents of your late night burrito, isan Olympic Event. Much like the retired denizens who stroll around yourneighborhood with 3 pound hand-weights and an expeditious gait, the sport ofwalking-really-fast found its way onto the Olympic medal podium… 56 YEARSAGO?!?! And our cold-war compadres, Mother Russia, have been dominating thissport ever since. I want you to imagine for a moment: Communist Russia, whose proletariat policiesof forced labor, burdened its citizens into the jobs that they would performfor their country. That means that youcould have been a 6 year-old child and woke up one day to a commander orderingyou into a future of Race Walking.”Wake up Kirrill. Now walk, don’t run, your lazybolskevik to the Olympic Training Facility. Be ready in 12 years. And eat yourgruel!” I imagine there are fates worse than this, but I can’t think of one atthe moment.
2. Steeplechase
How do I explain this without making it too complicated? It’s a track race, with a few sporadic hurdles, one ofwhich has a water pit, and you do this 7 times. Ok, I guess that wasn’t that complicated yet I felt strangely ridiculousdescribing it. This event has been around since the inception of the modernOlympics, yet somehow it has only grown to prominence over the last decade orso. The lack of popularity amongst the Olympic enthusiast can primarily beattributed to the fact that it’s just really really stupid. In a note to theIOC, this writer has offered the recommendation that the inclusion of analligator, or other indigenous carnivore, would be of great benefit to thesport it holds so near and dear.
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| Oh yeah, and the Kenyans dominate it. |
3. Trampolining
Rememberwhen you were a kid and got your first trampoline and you were amped beyondimagination so you jumped on and began bouncing away but then found yourselfbored somewhere around the 3 minute mark? I imagine that sentiment is similarto what it’s like to watch so-called Olympians jump up and down on atrampoline. With such acrobatic moves as the Ball-out Randy, Kaboom and Three-QuarterFront Turntable, I could see myself initially intrigued but subsequentlywanting to punch myself in the face for wasting those three minutes when Icould have been much more productive watching some other, much more exciting, sport like Badminton. Wait…what?!?!
4. Badminton
Badminton: the stupid game you got stuck playing in middleschool when all the big-kids had the basketball courts and the tetherball polewas taken, was indoctrinated in the Olympic Games during the 1992 BarcelonaGames. For the past 20 years, it’s hidden under the radar of much betterplayground games like Ping-Pong (excuse me - Table Tennis), racquetball and archeryand I’m pretty sure that in another 20 years I could write the same thing.
5. Synchronized Diving
It’s diving but with 2 divers doing the same thing at thesame time. Because witnessing just one diver doing their thing wasn’t enough, theydecided to make a team sport out of a very singular activity. With that said,why not include Synchronized Pole Vault, Synchronized Weightlifting orSynchronized Trampolining? What’s that you say…Synchronized Trampolining doesexist? Fuck me.
9/26/12
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