It’s odd that skateboarding has become an Olympic event. This week we learned of a young girl who is a hopeful for the British skateboard team to Beijing.
While I have a lot of admiration for skateboarders, or anyone travelling on ridiculously small wheels powered by gravity, this is not in the spirit of a Games’ event. The Olympics seem to be increasingly side-tracked by un-athletic recreational pastimes, masquerading as sports.
What next? Pole dancing? Cute Cat Videos? Capital Gains Taxing?
Sports we must include
Here are some events we’d like to see included at the next Olympics:
Bull Rush: New categories include the Black Friday Mall Sale Stampede, Japanese Train Packing, and 30 per cent off at Briscoes’ weekly sale.
Sporran Grooming: Scotland is favourite for gold again. But the Irish team have been working on their reach-around technique and could grab it from behind.
Light Sabre fighting: Only for Earth people with bad haircuts. No space lords allowed.
Ball Tampering: Aussie teams rule here, with Steve Smith and Bishop Pell among the top contenders.
Fleeing from the Police: The New Zealand team is committed in preparation but has suffered a lot of training casualties. The USA is struggling to select an effective team because most of the candidates are shot dead before they can get into cars. The Solomon Islands are hopeful of getting two cars before the start of the Olympics. Solomons, Sao Tome, Principe and Somalia have the lowest ratio of motor vehicles to people in the world, only about three per thousand persons. NZ ranks third highest in the world, with 839 cars per thousand. Which could explain why we are so good at car pursuits; there are plenty to chase and 998 of those thousand are complete idiots on the road. NZ has 2.32 police officers per thousand inhabitants, so Rogers’ Maths suggests it’s likely that the only two non-idiots are the police chasing the rest of us.
Coalition Governing: The Kiwis are world leaders in producing fragmented, weak and divided parliaments and should easily medal at Beijing.
Treaty Honouring: NZ should do well in this event. Not only do we uphold the treaty, but also factor in stuff that wasn’t even in the treaty. We’ll get a good score for creativity.
Eating Apples through Tennis Rackets: This event is a favourite of my mate John, who has nominated our own PM for the team. We weren’t initially going to include this in the list, as it seemed mean and unprofessional to criticise someone because of their physical features, speech or impairments; until we saw Ms Ardern so amused by Winston Peters dissing Simon Bridges in the Choyna comments; and it’s clear she doesn’t walk the talk on such discrimination and is therefore fair game.
Outliving Keith Richards: This event is struggling to field enough competition, so may have to be adjusted to something more realistic, such as Outliving The Solar System.
My Dad’s specialist field: Rotary Hoe stunt driving. See who can creatively rip up a field for kumara, spuds and pumpkins planting while at the handlebars of raw, unbridled Masport 4 horsepower while avoiding the old sheila’s gumboots. Extra points for the appropriate shirt and hat.
Freedom Camping: See how many pristine areas you can trash before your visitor visa runs out. Extra points for creative avoidance of your toilet aboard your team’s so-called self-contained station wagon.
Flag Changing: See how many millions you can spend on deliberating to change your flag without actually changing it, and end up flying the old one at the closing ceremony.
Lime Scooter Stunts: Judged on straight line speed, airtime, best dismount, most pedestrians compromised, biggest harbour splash, most traffic disruption, most bones broken, most audacious intersection move, creative parking, and the grand finale involving all teams, Mass Crash.
Leaky Building Building: See how many ways you can get water to track inside a structure. Extra points for keeping the ingress concealed for as long as possible.
Boeing Dodging: Teams take their positions just off the end of the runway while 737MAX aircraft take off. Competitors try to duck for cover and dodge wreckage. Last person standing wins. Bonus points for finding the black box.
Finally here’s an event for the Kiwi car owners: Texting While Driving: We are world champions and would smash this one.