The Olympics are over, so that means we have four years to conjure up some new events.
I'd never say the current events are boring, but we've been watching people chuck javelins and run in circles for 3,000 years. This isn't Wheel of Fortune, people. It’s time for a change. Let’s spice things up a little.
This all came to mind after a visit to a zoo where we saw a tiger playing with a big rubber ball in a pool of water. I had no idea that some breeds of tigers like the water as much as they like dry land – or that they used balls as floaties. It made me think. The biathlon is two events in one, namely shooting at targets and cross-country skiing. It’s a perfectly fine event, but just think if we tweaked it a tiny bit. Contestants could be required to try to escape from a hungry tiger by running cross country and swimming across a river.
Baby, that's an event.
After a little more research, I discovered that tigers have webbed feet and can swim for 20 miles.
You see where I'm going with this? Marathon! One problem I've noticed about Olympic athletes is that they don't take competing seriously enough. I mean, it's one thing to spend your whole life training for an event, but if losing meant coming in second to a tiger...that's motivation.
Here's another good idea. Now that we've introduced the idea of animal competitors, how about we have each country enter their best animal. It would lead to some changes in the medal counts. For instance, Botswana has more elephants than any other country, Brazil has jaguars and Iceland has...puffins.
We'll put that idea on the back burner for a while.
Try this on for size. We have all these folks who can throw javelins and hammers and those big steel frisbees. Right now, they fling them into an empty field. Interesting I suppose, but what if we made teams and had them throw them at each other. Think how your form would change if you were running up to throw your javelin and out of the corner of your eye you saw a hammer coming your way.
Okay, maybe get rid of the hammer throw altogether. I'm just a bit worried that someday Norway would sneak Thor into the event. That would cause a problem in the record book.
I don't know what we could do to change gymnastics. As far as I'm concerned, the competitors already do things that look impossible to me. But I've been thinking about the hurdle events. What if the hurdles are all lying flat on the ground and some of them just pop up unexpectedly at three or four different heights? That would add some drama. Maybe give the hurdle controls to people in the audience.
It dawned on that I was being too unselfish in redesigning the Olympics. Not one of these events is something I could compete in. I know some people might think I'm past my athletic prime, and I'm eager to prove them wrong. Let me run this one by you. We'll call it “The Leisurely Stroll.” Competitors walk down a city street searching their phone for a place to have brunch. You have to avoid crashing into fire hydrants and also be on the lookout for pickpockets who have their eye on your wife's purse, all the while trying to find the place with the bottomless mimosas.
I'm telling you, I would dominate.
Copyright 2024 Brent Olson