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Why is this not an Olympic event? It could be a triathlon event with the egg-and-spoon and three-legged races. |
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What [hippo] said, and add these: !!!!!!!!!! |
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I like the idea of a school sports triathlon but I am concerned about the arithmetic of it:
egg and spoon: 1 competitor;
three legged race: 2 competitors, perhaps more in the Paralympics;
4 x 100m Sack Race: 4 competitors, though you could I suppose have just two, but assuming no change of direction (sack race beep test) that means each competitor is sack-racing ~200m and running ~200m, which changes the tone of the event. |
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This means that the school sports triathlon team has one triathlete, one biathlete and two athletes. Or three biathletes and one athlete, though that structure smells a little too like American Footballian single position specialism to hold with the Olympian ideal. |
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I'm concerned about the problems in geometry & directional control that a Paralympian Three-legged race would pose. if, as I presume, we are talking about strapping three unipeds together? It would seem to me to be an event more suitable for Jeux Sans Frontieres (of beloved but, after the revelation of Stuart Hall's crimes, soiled memory).
As far as the Olympian Ideal is concerned, I believe it is expressed eloquently in the traditional closing event, the Modern Pentathlon. It is all about riding on your own into the enemies' camp whilst avoiding the numerous barriers to entry (showjumping), killing them all (fencing), escaping across the moat (swimming) & running for your life whilst shooting any survivors who are in pursuit (running & shooting). So anything (except for hand grenades or other mass effect weapons) goes really. (Think 'Sir Lancelot' in Monty Python & The Holy Grail). |
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//This means that the school sports triathlon team has one triathlete, one biathlete and two athletes// You can easily solve this maths problem by adding the word 'synchronised' to any of the events, so the triathlon could be a team of 4 taking part in synchronised egg-and-spoon race, then 2 teams of two in a synchronised three-legged race, and then a relay team of 4 in a relay sack race. |
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No, that's trans-athletes. Bi-athletes are athletes in two sports. |
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Funny that hippo should mention synchronisation... One of the few things that I like about watching athletics is seeing the normal human activities (running, jumping, throwing) abstracted in pursuit of victory into their competitively consistent optimum style, becoming a sequence of conceptually doable but actually weirdly inhuman moments of movement, spines being whipped over the bar in a Fosbury flop, Jonathan Edwards's arms swinging back and forth, that sort of thing. And I want to see that elegance and abstraction brought to the sack race, especially to the handover. I want slo-mo shots: the waiting racer in the changeover box, twisted at the waist, looking back over his shoulder at racer one kangarooing down the lane towards them; the waiting racer leaping vertically into the air; the incoming racer, mid-air, arm rigid, holding the sack open like clown trousers; the incoming racer swishing into the bag, no rim, both landing simultaneously; both jumping forwards now in perfect synchronisation, the edge of the changeover box approaching; the first racer in the air, out the bag, legs freed from jute darkness into the glare of the stadium lights, feet tucked under bum as if leaping backwards onto a mantelpiece; and now a reverse of the first slo-mo shot, first racer hands on hips watching second racer bouncing down the lane. These are the moments of perverse beauty that might, if I can persuade (bribe) the IOC, be enjoyed across the globe. |
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