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I love the Olympics. I love it so much that for the past four hours, I’ve been drinking bourbon and watching random non-primetime events, and in between Googling various female gymnasts to see if they were over 18, I realized something. There are way too many Olympic events that no one knows/cares about that I could totally rock at. I don’t even think I’m being cocky when I say I could not only qualify and make it to Rio, I could even take home some medals. To really give you all a sense of my raw athletic talent, I played four years of extremely average hockey in high school, and I used to be able to do a front flip with only the help of 3-6 beers. So yeah, there’s no doubt I could make this beautiful country proud in any of these events (which I have done no research on).
1. Dressage
This is horse dancing. You dress your horse up all pretty like it’s going to prom, and then you…let it dance like it’s going to prom. This is a prom for horses. I don’t see how I could fuck this up. I would buy a fancy dancing horse, pay my trainer to teach it some dope hip-hop moves, and then have it go full Step Up 2: The Streets in front of all the (presumably) rich, white judges. They’d be so scared of being called racists that they would award me the bronze medal and talk about how brave my routine was. Literally, my only job in this whole process would be to not fall off the horse, something I’m pretty sure I could pull off. Also, I don’t know if you’re allowed to play music at this thing, but if so, my horse is dancing to “Get It On The Floor” by DMX.
Results: One bronze medal and a fly-ass horse.
2. Rhythmic Gymnastics
This is that twirly ribbon shit that Will Ferrell did in the critically acclaimed frat movie, Old School. Fucking love that movie.
Anyway, if Will Ferrell’s fat ass can do this, I definitely can. I did gymnastics for three years when I was in grade school (fight me), and I’m sure that muscle memory is still there. This isn’t even the crazy “I’m pretty sure that girl could beat me up and she’s defying gravity” gymnastics either. This is just running around, twirling a long ribbon, and not even doing any flips. I could totally do this. Do I have trouble keeping the rhythm when clapping for my alma mater’s fight song? Maybe. Does this bode poorly since this sport literally has the word “rhythm” in it? Perhaps. Did I have to Google how to spell “rhythm” after spell check couldn’t figure out what I was trying to say? Yes. But none of that is important. I have music in my soul, and I look damn good in a leotard. I’m assuming the panel of judges for this is like 80 percent older women (my demographic), so I’ll just toss some winks their way and lock this up for the U.S.A.
Results: Gold, baby. Like I said, I look damn good in a leotard.
3. Fencing
I grew up in the nineties with two other brothers and parents that both worked full-time. I’ll let you do the math on how many “sword” fights we had as a kid. Pretty much every summer afternoon from 1996-2002 was filled with my brothers, our friends, and I all beating the shit out of each other with sticks we found. And let me tell you, I was good. Maybe the best Harwood Lane had ever seen. Plus, I was the oldest of my brothers and the biggest asshole of my friends; everyone wanted a piece of me. I had to fight for my superiority every day in the mean streets of our upper-middle class neighborhood, and that bulldog mentality has stuck with me to this day. Put me in the ring (Court? Rink? I know nothing about fencing), and I have no doubt I could hold me own. Everyone who takes fencing classes is probably a wus, and they would never see my patented overhead sword throw coming. Plus I would carry a secret backup dagger in my boot like a boss. The Mask Of Zoro came out in 1998, in case you were wondering.
Results: Either a gold medal or a disqualification. Nothing in between. Probably the latter.
4. Canoe Slalom
As far as I can tell, this is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a slalom race like they do in skiing, but with a canoe. In the water, It looks dumb as hell and that is why I could win in it. I guarantee no one reading this has ever heard of this event, and it will be aired at like 11 a.m. on a Tuesday. Most countries probably don’t even have anyone competing at this event. I would literally just have to show up and I’m guaranteed a spot on the stand. The judge is probably so salty that he was assigned this event that he won’t even be watching. He’ll be streaming the 100-yard dash like everyone else in the world and I would just have to come up to him and tell him I got second and he’d give me the medal. Hell, I might not even get in the canoe, I’d just splash myself with water and make sure I’m holding a paddle when I collect my medal. Sure, eventually I’d get found out and the IOC would demand that I return my medal, but both them and I know they have no power outside of these three weeks every four years. I would wear that medal proudly on my neck ‘til the day I died, and tell girls it was for a much cooler sport.
Results: A silver medal and prolonged legal battle with the IOC for cheating. If that’s not American, I don’t know what is.
5. Trampoline
I’ve been training for this event my whole fucking life. Did you know jumping on a trampoline was an Olympic event? I sure as hell didn’t or I would have signed up for Rio. My dad had a trampoline in our backyard and I can do every trick in the book on it. Double front flips? Cake. Backflip? No problem. I’ve done misty flips, butterfly flips, and on one memorable summer, a girl named Hannah on that trampoline. I have watched literally zero seconds of footage of this event, but I am 100 percent convinced that I could take home the gold in this. I haven’t been on a trampoline in years, and at this point, I’ve had five stiff Bourbons and Cokes and could probably fly to Rio right now and still take these other athletes on.
Results: A gold medal, and probably the Zika virus from that brothel Team USA “accidentally” wandered into.
I’m going to start training for 2020 as soon as I sober up. My biggest problem will be buying a display case to house all these fucking medals. .
If you enjoy Olympic banter and really bad ideas on how to improve future Olympic Games, listen to the most recent episode of Touching Base on iTunes, or listen on SoundCloud below.
Image via lazyllama / Shutterstock.com
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Nick Arcadia
The opposite of a life coach. Email or DM me if you want some bad advice: nickarcadiapgp@gmail.com
@noampao
noamio
You need to be more careful when putting “sword” fight in quotation marks- it’s the implication.
You didn’t play slap dick with your brother and friends?
Pretty envious that you’re getting drunk right now
screw having my mom see my drunk misadventures on Instagram. I’m gonna make sure the whole world sees my debauchery on the Olympics. TarcadiaM
Rhythm always trips me up, both literally and figuratively.
Laughed out loud in my cube at “and a girl named Hannah”
Canoe slalom is a helluva lot harder than you’d think, as I learned when I tried making the cut in 2012. Second to last, baby!
I was on the US Fencing National team for about two weeks in 2004, prepping for Beijing. I broke my leg being a stupid high school kid and they kicked me off. Allow me to correct you: Fencing is done by some seriously scary Russians.