Four square. Equipment: a piece of flat ground, and one of those cheap plastic balls that’s about the size of a soccer ball.
Since as it’s normally played, there’s no score, and no permanent winner, you’d have to score it by number of rounds of play spent in the #4 square.
I propose the 1 yard air race. Contestants stand on skateboards but are not allowed to touch the ground. Gun sounds and contestants try to put themselves in motion by moving the hands as if swimming and/or farting to achieve jet propulsion. First across the finish line wins.
More like tenfold.
But even then, specific countries dominate. Ethiopia and Kenya are the marathon kings; those two countries have 15 Olympic marathon medals b etween them, more than all other African nations combined. The Berlin Marathon, where the world record is usually set and which is sort of the premier event, has been won by a Kenyan or an Ethiopian runner every year on the men’s side since 1999, and eleven our of the twelve last years on the women’s side.
No matter what sport you’re talking about, there is a chance a limited number of countries will dominate it. Success breeds more success, because somoene gets good at it, and it becomes popular, and the country sets up a training center and starts pouring money into it and directing its best athletes there. That’s why Jamaica dominates sprinting; they’re obsessed with it as a sport and take it extremely seriously. It’s why Canada produces most of the world’s best hockey players, why China dominates ping pong, why the Dominican Republic is weirdly skilled at baseball, why Bulgarians are good at lifting weights, and why people from the Netherlands win all the events in speed skating.
If “Throw Yourself The Tennis Ball” was made a sport it’s entirely possible one nation would get good at it and start to just kick the hell out of everyone. Let’s say it got popular in Egypt, a country not known for a great deal of success at the Olympics, and some Egyptian guy won the gold medal in 2020. You might see this snowball; the sport becomes even more popular, Egypt picks up a few more medals in 2024, and pretty soon the government is pouring money into a training center and identifying the best young men and women in the country to be trained there. Of course the best athletes will take the sport up because that’s the sport that gets supported. Eventually, of course, the 2020 and 2024 Olympic champions will retire and coach the next generation, passing on their skill and wisdom, and net thing you know we just accept it as a given that Egypt kicks the hell out of this sport and there’s three Egyptians on the podium, and it just seems like the natural order of things.
The Royal Tongan Ski Federation is getting into FIS and hoping for the Olympics (alpine and cross-country), so I suggested that they incorporate cross-country skate sand skiing into their training, hoping that it will popularize the sport locally. (WTF is skate sand skiing? Here’s a pic of Olympian Bill Koch who popularized skate skiing on snow, and took up sand skiing in retirement.)
I doubt if it will take off (and if it does, it will take years), but along with roller-skis, it is one of the few ways they can develop young athletes for cross-country skate skiing without spending the entire year (a budget) abroad.
I would love to see foot volleyball as a sport in the olympics. When I was doing my study abroad in Rio de Janeiro I noticed they seemed to play a lot of foot volleyball. It’s really cool! For those not aware; It’s basically volleyball but using soccer rules! It’s pretty amazing seeing a volleyball game happens where the players don’t use their hands. Even the serve is a kick off an ‘anthill’ of sand.
Pffft. Easy! Sepak Takraw. Watch and be amazed.
That looks like a good way to get a broken neck.
It’s amazing, facilities don’t depend on terrain or climate, and the space requirements are lower than many other sports. It can be judged on the same basis as gymnastics or figure skating; formalized competition is already established and growing. It’d actually make me tune in for at least one part of the Olympics.
I propose both Circle and Freestyle competitions.
That totally fucking rocks! It reminds me a lot of Net Hackey Sack, too.