Faster, stronger, higher

[davywavy]

One thing that the Olypmics Committee allows is for the host nation to introduce new sports to the competition on a "one in, one out" basis.
Most nations use this right to introduce sports which pretty much guarantee them medals, such as Basketball in the Los Angeles games or Taekwondo by the Koreans and this leaves the British with something of a conundrum, which was alluded to by BoJo at the handover ceremony: one side-effect of post imperialism is that we conquered the world and encouraged the entire globe to play our games. More than 80% of the sports in the Olympics were either invented or formally codified by the British and most of the good ones we invented are already there. What sport can we possibly introduce in 2012 to bring up our medal tally?
This is less of a problem for other nations with regional sports; nobody expects anyone to seriously challenge the USA in the World Series of Baseball because nobody plays Baseball outside of New York and Chicago. On the other hand, despite the Football Association rulebook being one of the most influential books ever written, nobody has expected much of British football on the world stage ever since a bunch of sailors said to some Brazilians "Hey, we've just invented a new game, anyone fancy a kickabout on the beach?" a hundred years ago.
If there's a downside to ruling the world, it's that when you have to up sticks and call it a day the rest of the world then proceeds to take a perverse glee in thrashing you silly at your national sports; look at the reactions of the West Indies, SA, NZ, Australia or India to winning at the cricket. When they play each other, it's a manly handshake. When they play England, it's cause for a national boozeup and mockery. It's been the same throughout history; the Germanic tribes took a great deal of pleasure in beating the Romans at their national sports of sacking, rape and pillage two thousand years ago.
So this leaves us with a conundrum. When even 19th century after-dinner games with tablemats and fruit (ping-pong) have become someone's national sport (China), it's difficult for the 2012 host nation to come up with anything to guarantee a podium topping moment or two. There's Rugby, but there are difficulties in running a multi-nation knockout tournament of the most violent sport of earth in under two weeks and expecting there to be any survivors let alone winners (other than New Zealand) so that's not a help.
Possibly the only option is to go really obscure.

[Poll #1253506]

Comments

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

Queueing. We kick a*se at standing around whiling away vast portions of our lives waiting for things.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Nope, just this morning I saw a total breakdown of Queues in our local sainsburys. I think the Germans are now the masters of this.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Colonisation

Or spelling...

Adjudicator: Spell colour

American champ: Colour, C - O - L - O - R, Colour

Adjudicator: Incorrect

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

One of my great ideas for the 2012 opening ceremony was, as the competing teams enter the stadium, for a troupe of actors to do a little montage about how we invaded and conquered that particular nation. I reckon we could do that for most of 'em.

[morgan303.livejournal.com]

Morris Dancing, Cock-Fighting, or the 200-yard MPs-in-Bondage-Gear Dash?

Or some sort of appalling hybrid of all of the above.

Or perhaps simply Embarrassment. The British do that extremely well. Possibly the Japanese could give them a run for their money, but I still reckon it's a shoe-in.

Gorgeous post.:)

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

I have heard a rumour, which has a certain amount of inside info attached to it. This is that Morris Dancing is currently in the plans for the opening ceremony. Some Morris sides have been spoken to about it.

I love this idea.

[sea-cucumber.livejournal.com]

Morris dancing :)

[flywingedmonkey.livejournal.com]

Dude! How can you not consider- Cross-over events from the Chap Olympics. That way YOU could enter.

JmC
And win!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, you're absolutely right!
My brain must be empty today.

[drplokta]

Tiddlywinks!

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

For which one can gain a quarter-blue at Cambridge, I believe.

[lexx-uk.livejournal.com]

I belive they are looking at playing 20/20 and are looking at Lords and the Oval to host........

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Oh well, it's about time India started winning Olympic Gold at something.

[fonnparr.livejournal.com]

I hear 'conkers' is being re-introduced into the school playground (along with the requisite hard-hats and safety goggles) - Maybe somebody has a four year plan.

But if you want a internationally recognised sport/game that the British tend to do extremely well in then Snooker/Pool would be my choice.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Shin-kicking, simply because the current national champion is a friend of mine (and a very fine swordman, too: beats me up on a regular basis on Tuesday nights).

[caseytalk.livejournal.com]

I am surprised none of you thought of this:

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Getting Terry Gilliam sot design the open ceremony would be very funny. Bloody stupid as well, but very funny.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Scrumping!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Wenching!

[hiromasaki.livejournal.com]

"nobody expects anyone to seriously challenge the USA in the World Series of Baseball because nobody plays Baseball outside of New York, Chicago, Havana, and Tokyo."

I fixed that for you. :P (Although I now see you mentioned the World Series, and so I will point out that Canada, as the only other nation besides the US to participate in the World Series, has won once. At first I thought you were talking Olympic Baseball...)

And really, Basketball is our sport anymore. Baseball is still a very US thing, but our Basketball Olympic Team gets far more face time on the Tele than Baseball.

As for the British addition to the Olympics, I would say that it has to be something that requires a lot of skill, but not necessarily a lot of physical training. Billiards, Darts, etc. There's not very much of that in the Olympics these days. I would say introduce Poker, but the 'Muricans in Vegas would whomp y'all.

[(Anonymous)]

Twoccing. And I thought the British won the first world series, but didn't bother showing up again as it was a gurls game.

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

"Dwarf-tossing"

I get the wrong mental image with this one. Although it would certainly make for an interesting (if rather exclusive) TV spectacle...

[fonnparr.livejournal.com]

Like how the women's beach volleyball got a healthy portion of the tv scheduling this summer.

In 2012 they are setting up the 'beach' in Horseguards of all places - I wonder which politician came up with that idea!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

have you been watching that Verne Troyer video again?

[elbly.livejournal.com]

Pigeon Racing, or maybe Train Spotting.

[elbly.livejournal.com]

Or maybe indeed we could go back to the hazy days of 1928 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_competitions_at_the_1928_Summer_Olympics) and re-introduce "town planning" and "epic works". I am sure we could definitely win a gold for town planning - I mean just look at Milton Keynes... how could we not win?