The Olympics:
The greatest event on earth. The immortal spectacle that unites the world in a glorious celebration of the human form.
The Olympics:
An experience so intense that we can only handle its brilliance once every four years.
The Olympics:
The one chance to shine for all eternity, the pinnacle of any athlete's career, the glint of gold that will accompany a winner’s name forevermore.
The Olympics:
The event that has become ... well ... a little bit boring.
Where have all the personalities gone? We don’t have USSR vs America anymore. Linford Vs Lewis. No one can compare to Redgrave and Pinsent. The personalities have been replaced with stopwatches, false starts and sponsored temptoos. Where are the Olympians?
The Olympics, when it was fit to hold the name, was about proving to other people that one country was superior to another, without all the messy killing. There is a good reason why the ancient Olympic champions ran in armour, had events in fighting, horsemanship and threw weapons of war. It was about exercising our warrior nature.
The modern Olympics have Table Tennis.*
But we can redress the balance with the inclusion of one great new event:
Olympic Paintball
Oh yes, this would save the Olympic spirit! Just imagine the possibilities you could have with the arena alone! Why not change the terrain each round, use smoke effects, atmospherics and pyrotechnics, you could even play music! The event could have thousands of cameras, action replays, maybe we could use bullet time for the slow-motion!
The opportunities for different events would be immense: capture the flag, team events, one-on-one, battle royale! We would have both male, female and open teams so there would be tons of medals up for grabs!
And don’t forget the rivalries! They would all come flooding back, North Korea vs. South Korea, Britain vs. America.
Think of all the great personalities that could come out of it, I’m hoping for at least one real life James Bond!
I’m salivating already.
*Actually I quite like Table Tennis; I find it entertaining to both watch and play. It is a fun game; but it’s not warfare. Not by a long shot.
If you'll indulge me, I’m going to pre-empt some criticism:
No I’m not being ironic, I think It would be as cool as sautéed liquid nitrogen on a bed of BEC.
Yes guns are evil ... unless they spray paint. We already use rifles and handguns in the Olympics. Come on, it would be way cool.
That could happen in the swimming too. We’ll do psyche evaluations and check for real guns beforehand or something, no biggie. (ps “going feral”: LOL)
No it wouldn’t cost too much, just think of the computer game sponsorship and tie-ins. You could even play along at home!
No I don't think that this is going to happen any time soon.
Major General Panic says: The competitors could use national colours in their paintballs. Patriotic!