Olympic Dentaracing is coming

 

This year, break dancing and team break dancing have become Olympic “sports” events. They join a host of “sports” that must be juried, like gymnastics and synchronized diving where relative performance can’t be objectively timed or measured, as it can be with the hammer throw, for instance, or foot races.

Opening the Olympics to more people seems a generous and progressive move. Most certainly, we’re not bound by the illusion that they should remain true to the ancient Greek competitions at Mt. Olympus. There were no Olympics for most of the time between their inception in 776 BCE and 1894 when Pierre de Coubertin organized their revival.

What the modern Olympics retain from their ancient namesake is that they’re primarily physical tests of strength and speed, and are keenly competitive. What they’ve unfortunately added, though, is the nationalism element: posted results generally report medal winners by nation. As I write this (August 03, 2024), Canada is tenth when total medal winnings are reported. Even as an armchair Canadian, I should be very proud.

(Wealthy nations win all the medals. Most nations (153 this morning) are winning zero medals. Canada with a population of 40 million has a GDP around $45,000 per person. Yemen, also with  40 million citizens has an annual GDP per persons around $975. Canada: 12 medals; Yemen: 0 medals. Win a gold for Canada and you get a check for $20,000 Cdn. $15,000 for silver, $10,000 for bronze. In Turkey, a gold will win you $500,000 U.S. Just sayin’.)

Swimmers competing, I’ve read, shave off all body hair. Occasionally, coaches fly drones over competitors’ practices to see if they can find an edge. Performance enhancing drugs are perennially at issue. Sometimes the need to win overwhelms impulses for camaraderie and “sportsmanship.” The politics of the Olympics sometimes goes down dark rabbit holes. Very unfortunate.

For the Olympics to become inclusive enough to embrace me would take some imagination. I propose Dentaracing. It involves eating a sticky bun, removing, brushing and rinsing an upper denture, reinserting it, then eating 15 cherries and spitting the pits into a wastebasket six feet away. A kind of mini triathlon. First finished wins gold, of course, unless he/she fails to deposit at least 12 pits in the basket, which would mean disqualification, as would dropping the denture into the sink.

I could use $30,000 right now.