The Olympics is (or are, or am) expanding! For the first time since 1904, golf will be an Olympic sport. And it’s about time. Audiences around the world have been clamoring for the chance to watch the world’s top golfers hit the world’s top golf balls and to stare, in polite incomprehension, at tv close-ups of the balls soaring, or falling, or something, against a blank blue sky. The endless walking, the strictly enforced silence, the fluttery “golf claps” after a player holes out—compared to that, who needs the sweaty, strenuous tumult of the 440-meter “dash,” with its visible discomfort and lunging bodies and images of pain and suffering?
But the upgrade of Olympic(s) event(s) doesn’t/don’t stop(s) there. Below, a rundown of more newly-authorized competitions, both team and individual, to help television viewers wile away the minutes between commercials.
“SLIP ‘N’ SLIDE” – Technically known as “Linear Hydro-Acrobatics” (LHA), men and women competitors (individuals and pairs) take a running start and then launch themselves down a 200-meter, one-meter-wide, irrigated plastic surface, while performing a series of required and optional exercises to popular classical music themes. Points are awarded for speed, accuracy of execution, cuteness, and sexual suggestiveness. Scoring, as in Gymnastics, is done by a panel of semi-objective/openly partisan judges.
SUMO-ROMAN WRESTLING – A cross between Sumo and Greco-Roman wrestling. Competitors (who must weigh at least 350 lbs/159 kg.), naked except for loin cloths, “grapple” by looking at each other, walking past each other, and spinning suggestively. Points are awarded for arbitrary, usually invisible achievements, including “standup-take down,” “quickie cross,” and “pinion,” which are announced by three referees in Japanese, Greek, and Latin simultaneously. Men only, alas. So far.
SQUARE DANCING – You’d assume that most countries around the world would be entirely indifferent to the rural U.S. folk art of square dancing – and you’d be right. Too bad. If there can be international competitive ice dancing, there can be international competitive square dancing. Callers speak only English, so competitors must be bi-lingual. Points are awarded for Honoring Your Partner, Honoring Your Corner, Do-si-do-ing, Promenading Your Partner, Promenading Your Corner, Allemand-lefting and –righting, and for pointiest lapels (men) and puffiest crinolines (women).
MINIATURE GOLF – The beloved, hyper-competitive pastime involving scale-model windmills and toddler-sized plaster castles finds its mature incarnation in an Olympic(s)-size course featuring an actual working windmill (imported from Amsterdam), a 56-room castle airlifted from Germany, and other full-sized obstacles —- all arrayed in Rio’s new, $200 million Minigolfedromo. All holes are par 3; balls are red, blue, green, orange, and yellow. Putters are scaled to children. The cup on Hole 18 connects to a tube that whisks the ball away to some scary, mysterious underground world, never to be seen again.
GREEK DODGE – Dodge-ball in which Teams A and B face each other across a line, but members of A stand behind B, and vice-versa. When a player is struck by the ball and fails to catch it, he or she joins the others behind the opposing team. Regional tournaments (Europe, South America, Africa) have been marred by rumors of doping, taunting, name-calling, bullying, and crying. Most likely to win the gold: Japan. Least likely: the Czech Republic. (Greece cannot afford to field a team. (!))
Photo by jpellgen
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