Events I Want To See At The 2016 Rio Olympics

As I have spent the past week watching numerous hours of Olympic events with my wife, it takes everything in me to not make silly comments to her about what I am observing and thinking.  This goes for most things in my life and she, unfortunately, has grown somewhat tired of hearing my "funny" comments.  So I thought "hey, I have a blog now...what a great place to share".  As much as I am in to tradition and the spirit of the Olympics, I do think it would attract more viewers like myself, if say...each athlete had to participate in one not so traditional event. 

For example, I would love to see the swimmers compete in a new event such as the 10m Plunge.  This is where swimmers take their marks on the block and at the sound of the horn begin their race to the bottom of the pool, approximately some 5m in depth, and then finish strong to the surface where the fastest competitor will win the gold.  My wife heard this and thought it would be terribly stupid and yet I think it would be incredibly fun to watch and it would be a super fast event, unlike the 4x200m relays that can drag on for several minutes. 

Another event I would like to see is the Synchronized Platform Dive'N'Splash.  This is obviously an event in which a pair of divers climb to the top of the platfom and while one provides a traditional dive to be judged the traditional way, the other tries to create the highest splash possible, likely with the infamous cannonball technique.  Their scores would be a combination of technique and minimal splash from one diver with the technique and height of splash from the other.  A similar event from the platform would be the Platform Long Jump.  I think that is all the explanation that is needed. 

I don't imagine my wife will waste her time reading this post and I ask her this and all of you who may be reading.  Are these events I have described so ridiculous compared to some of the events already in place in the Olympics?  At some point many of these events did not even exist and had to be proposed as new additions to the Olympic Games and I'm sure many people had their doubts.  Take the shooting events for example.  In my best Jim Gaffigan impression I bet the proposal sounded like this, "Hey I got an idea.  How 'bout we make a new game where we shoot stuff and the best shooter will win like a medal or somethin'.  Well what will we shoot? Uh, I don't know, we could shoot clay discs!  Clay discs?  Yeah, we could call 'em skeets...we could shoot like ahundred of 'em and the best one wins". 

Or this one..."Hey I got an idea.  How 'bout we mix together basketball, soccer, swimming, polo and wrestling.  We could put like a goal at the end of the pool and you could throw the ball in it.  A combination of these events sounds interesting, tell us more.  Well everyone could wear funny hats for protection and we'd make the pool real long so they have to swim really far making a lot of dull moments, you know for them to rest.  Hmm.  Polo you say, what about adding horses to this?  Psshh, no that'd be crazy!

I don't entirely mean to poke fun at these events, and certainl not the elite athletes that play them, I just mostly want to speculate about how they were invented and what to expect in the future.  I hope this has got some of you thinking about new events to propose for the Rio Olympics in 2016.  Please post a comment if you have any great ideas.  It is fun to think of them and doesn't take much time.  These new events above took all of about 3 minutes for me and I'm sure there are even better ideas to be had yet.  Let's see. 



Images taken from the following sites, respectively: http://www.hometownstation.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29690:olympics-tradition-fun-facts-clarita-2012-05-30-15-30&catid=26:local-news&Itemid=97,  http://www.nbcolympics.com/photos/diving/womens-10m-synchronized-platform-finals-471675.html, http://www.waterelementswim.com/Pages/ClassSchedule.aspx, http://www.socialtechpop.com/tag/cannon-ball-dive/, http://www.celebuzz.com/photos/olympics-2012-the-scene-in-london/olympics-day-2-shooting/full-size/, http://www.theskipshot.com/2012/7/30/3205388/london-olympics-2012-mens-water-polo-tv-online-schedule