THE CHALLENGE OF NATIONS

 THE CHALLENGE OF NATIONS (The New Olympic sport.)  

By Bob French

I was in a bad mood.  If Mavis bloody Hetherington had not caught chicken pox, I would be down on the east stand of Craven Cottage watching Fulham kick the stuffing out of Accrington Stanley.  Instead, I’m sitting listening to the forty-nine or so delegates whose countries they had represented and participated in the 2028 and 2032 summer Olympic Games, and was trying to filter out whose ten penny-worth of ideas were both logical and possible. 

The Chair of the Executive Committee of the Games of the Olympiad, that’s the summer games to the likes of me and you, had open the meeting with only one agenda item, which ended up a free-for-all shouting match, which, if my ears didn’t fail me, the Germans were just a little bit louder than the French, which didn’t surprise me.

          As I slowly glanced around the room, I was impressed at the shape of everyone. They all looked young, fit, and well-groomed. I knew many of them from my participation in the 2024 and 2028 games, and guessed that most were the same age as me, but it was quite noticeable that there was a distinct lack of spare tires, baggy-eyes and cheeks and double chins, even those whose hair had turned grey did their level best to hide it with heavy duty hair dye.

          The agenda was only one item; it was felt that most of the events that took place in the past two Summer Games had reached their human performance ceiling; No one could jump higher than 2.68 meters any more, or sprint the 100 meters faster than 8.75 or to complete the marathon in under 2 hours. And to compound the decision there some sports now banned because it was felt they were too dangerous; such as boxing, wrestling, long distance running, white water canoeing, rock climbing and due to the EU wide ban on the use of horses in sporting events, all equestrian events were scrapped. The purpose of this meeting was to come up with a new set of sports for the 2036 summer games.

As I glanced around the room, I suddenly felt, not uncomfortable, but a little out of place, and grinned as I took a quick look down at my spare tyre.  I felt proud of the time and money I had invested into creating this master piece, and of the time felt pleased that I no longer spent lifting weights or pounding the track day after day. 

A loud voice caused me to look down to the head of the table.

“Je ne comprendess passsst Woman, for God sakes!” and smiled as Mr. Azlaney Yilmaz, the Turkish national swimming coach, whose turn it was to chair such meetings, was gradually losing his temper with Madame Charlotte Montpellier, who had won gold in the wrestling in 2028 games. You see the admin language of the Olympics movement is French and try as he may, old Azlaney’s grasp of the French language was absolutely pants. He tried to talk over her and I felt like discretely warning him that Madame Montpellier had a bit of a reputation for slapping any person who was upsetting her, and by the look of things, that wasn’t very far away.

The person on my left was a woman who should really have been on the cover of Vogue or Cosmopolitan.  She was Swedish and had a smile to die for. I had already met her at the bar and we struck up a decent conversation.  Her name was Helga and I quickly forgot her surname as I couldn’t pronounce it. She and I had participated in the 2032 games in Australia. She had won two silver medals; I got drunk and missed the finals.

We talked for a few minutes about what she was going to propose and thought her idea would probably be alright, but her proposal still centered on the athlete being ultra fit to compete and win, which I then tried to explain to her that the reason we were here was to discuss some alternative sports.

Suddenly, Azlaney lost his temper with Madame Montpelier.  Stood and began bashed the gavel several times to bring some order to the meeting.  It was the Norwegian representative who tugged at Azlaney’s sleeve and quietly informed him that everyone in the room was already silent.

“Oh, thank you. We are here today to suggest alternative events for future summer games. You have all had ten minutes to test your ideas with representatives from other nations, yes? So I shall start with you Heer Dr. Karlstadt from Germany.

The tall and elegant man stood and in perfect French spoke.

“Firstly, I would like to retain the fitness elements of all events and…”

Before he could finish the sentence, be was instantly interrupted by several other representatives who shouted him down.

“This is not what we are here for,” seem to be the cry. Some simply banged the table in protest.

Azlaney gradually worked his way around the table until he came to the Irish delegate.

“Mr. chairman, I would like to propose that instead of the 100-meter sprint, the 200 and 400 meters and the 110 hurdles. The athletes line up as usual, on hearing the pistol, they race to the first hurdle and drink a lemonade, then onto the second hurdle and drink a spritzer and so on with the drinks getting stronger as they move down the course until they reach the finish.  The winner is the person who drinks all the drinks and spills none of it.  This method can be used for the steeple chase, the 800, the 1500 meters and by four-by-four relay.

This proposal was met with an outcry as it virtually destroyed the ethos of the Olympics.  Madam Montpelier stood and clapped her hand to bring silence to the meeting which was really getting out of hand.

“Mr. Chairman, I would like to suggest that we each put our names on a piece of paper and you select the name from a hat. The person chosen then stands up and gives a brief description of his proposal. That way there is no cheating, but everyone must agree to the changes to be introduces and agree to adopt them.”

The room fell into silence. Azlaney stood and glanced at each person around the table. “Well, what do you think?  We need a method of selecting the new events or we shall be here all week.”

There was an unhealthy murmur starting to build up in the room, but I picked up from looking around the table, that most of the delegates thought it was a fair way to arrive at a solution.

Azlaney turned to one of the secretaries and asked her to provide each representative with paper and pencil, then asked the woman who had just brought in the coffee to empty one of the ice buckets, and dry it thoroughly, then go and stand at the other end of the table.

When he thought that everyone had completed the task, he asked the coffee lady to slowly go around the table and allow each delegate to drop their name into the bucket.

“Now, I shall ask…..” 

“Excuse me Sir.”  It was the coffee lady who had interrupted him and was looking a little bit flushed.

“Yes, what is it my dear?”

“How many pieces of paper are each delegate permitted to put into the bucket?”

“Only one, why?”

“Well, the gentleman sitting next to the man in the brown suit put three pieces of paper into the bucket.”

You could have heard a pin drop as everyone turned and looked at the Russian delegate.

Azlaney asked the coffee lady to bring the bucket to him, then carefully sifted through the pieces of paper until he found the three pieces of paper with the Russian’s name on them.  He slowly took them out and ripped them up in-front of everyone.

“Mr. Yashkenski, kindly leave this room.  I shall brief the Executive committee of your conduct and strongly suggest that your country be barred from the next two Olympic games.”

In total silence, Yashkenski slowly stood, turned, and left the room. Once the door had closed, everyone in the room burst into cheers and poor old Azlaney had another ten minutes of trying to bring some sort of order with his gavel.

He then reshuffled the bucked and invited the coffee lady to pick one piece of paper from it.

She moved forward, rose up onto her tip toes and picked a piece of paper.

“Mr. Ron Jenkins of Great Britain, please stand up and give the meeting your proposal?

“Mr. Chairman and fellow delegates.  I suggest that events where brute strength is used to win, be replaced with board games. Each nation to provide a variety of their national games with a warm-up period where other nations can learn how to play them.”

There was an eerie silence as each delegate pondered what I had said, then, without any warning, the room erupted into applaud.

Copyright Bob French