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jordan @jordan stratton
In order to get a true representation of each country's athletic skill, the Olympics should randomly select citizens to compete like it's jury duty:
Who's next on the balance beam for the US? Is it Simone Biles? Nope it's 39yo electrician, Dale. Wow he does not look confident
39 Year old Electrician Dale walks across it without any issue. You see, it's just like one of his jobs that someone else engineered from a desk without ever seeing that the job is impossible. But, Dale is the man who pulls it off by crossing narrow trusses carrying tools and the new equipment, while his assistant watches from below rethinking his career knowing Dale's the man he's going to have to replace in the next 10-15 years.
Way to go, Dale!
So this could be great the way you would have to make it work though Is each country would have to have 100 Or more citizens competing in each event. So that 1 or 2 really good or really bad citizens don't throw the entire competition.
And how much more invested would people be when there are more people who they actually know personally. Hell yeah if my 87 pound next door neighbor gets picked to do shotput am I not going to watch them Throw that sucker 3 feet?
For most events, the country would typically hold qualifiers first to vet the people they actually send to the Olympics. Could have it be like jury selection where you are called to the qualifiers and then they pick the best people there.
39 year old Dale the electrician and father of two young girls would be VERY CONFIDENT. What he wouldn't be is skilled.
He'd run at full speed (for Dale) onto the mat, fall on his ass and then start making snow angels.
He'd run to the bars, grab on, go halfway up, fall on his ass and then start making snow angels.
Balance beam? He'd run up at full speed, realize he has a bad back, run to the side of it, tap, tap, tap, fall to the ground and, you guessed it, snow angels.
And of course after each event he'd stand up (well, someone will probably have to give him a hand), but he'll stand up, do little finish, hands straight up as the crowd applauds. Whoops did I saw hands straight up? I meant finger guns. Pew pew Dale. Pew pew.
Dale will revolutionize the Olympics. New scoring categories will be added for 'attitude', 'pizzazz', and 'puns'.
Dale has expertise in all, a true champion
I think there should also be the "Ultra" Olympics where each country puts forward their most highly performance enhanced athletes.
“Next up on the javelin throw is Ivan Ivanovich. Weighing in at 450 pounds of pure muscle and built like two refrigerators side by side. Let’s see if he can beat his previous personal best of 2,5 miles…”
Javelin is actually a bad example for this, because javelins were redesigned about 40 years ago to not fly as far.
How is that fair for anyone trying to beat a previous world record? Or have they already all been beaten with the new javelins?
No, the longest throw is from 1984:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_javelin_throw_world_record_progression
They essentially just restarted records, mostly in the name of safety, as most stadiums don't have the room for people throwing 120+ meters.
They already do that, it's called the "Olympics"
Yea I meant like chemically performance enhanced.
Ah, that event is actually called "The Olympics".
AKA the Russian Olympics
With performance enhancing drugs allowed, right?
Alongside genetic modification. I want full teams of selectively bred and drugged mutants doing battle.
Can we bring AI enhanced cyborgs?
Inter planetary javelin throws? Maybe just add a dart board on Mars while we're at it.
And exoskeletons.
I would like to enter in my own competitor: Tom Howitzer.
Yea like that's the competition, to see who can make the best performance enhancing drugs.
Required, preferably!
I would be much more interested in sports in general if they removed all bans on performance enhancing drugs entirely. Football players the size of Buicks who can run through a brick wall without so much as a bruise.
On a slightly related topic, baseball would be a much better sport if you could take the bat with you after you hit the ball.
For safety, maybe an age range of something like 18-65. Now, how do we prevent the selection from being rigged?
You think the Olympics would be safe for an average 65 year old office worker?
I am now picturing a baby competing with a 100 year old in the hundred meter dash.
Meh, it's entertainment value would be lost after after the first couple go around. Would have to switch it up to Japenese Ninja Warrior style competitions to keep it interesting.
Would be better to place random people in government as true representation of the people. I truly believe anyone who wants to run for office is not fit for office.
This is how the Hunger games actually started before they got bored of the bloodless competitions.
This is basically what the draft accomplishes.
Various Lumberjack competitions actually capture this vibe pretty well.
We all know this idea would work.
Might be a bit far-fetched to call it a true representation, but yeah, the Dales and Susans would make it more diverse, but also potentially Hunger Games-like.
It would actually be quite entertaining if you let people choose their field, that way you'd get people at least somewhat competent.
Or do half and half. Let one half be random and the other half people that "want" to be there, and call it out. "That's Dave, he's doing terrible, especially considering he specifically asked us to let him do this one."
Putting an average person anywhere near gymnastics is just preparing to watch someone break their neck.
Didn't Bill Murray have a joke like this
He said they should have a normal guy competing next to the Olympians, so we can see just how skilled they really are.