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Hide-And-Seek At The Olympics Could Be Coming, Ready Or Not

As you know, in a staggeringly ridiculous decision, golf and rugby have been added to the program for the upcoming Olympics in Rio, so why not hide-and-seek in 2020?
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Digging your own burrow is cheating!
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Digging your own burrow is cheating!

I am somewhat looking forward to the "medaling", "podiuming" and "gold medal Zika Virus avoiding" at the Rio Olympics. However, I am far more excited about Tokyo 2020.

The games of the 32nd Olympiad will not only be a shot in the arm (calm down, Lance Armstrong) for the Japanese economy following the Fukushima nuclear f*ck up. But, more than that, the Tokyo games look to be a groundbreaker if one Professor Yasuo Hazaki has his way.

A graduate of Nippon Sport Science University, Professor Hazaki has been pushing to introduce competitive hide-and-seek as a demonstration sport for the Tokyo Olympics.

No, he hasn't been sampling the sake, he is deadly serious. Professor Hazaki established the Japan Hide-and-Seek Promotion Committee back in in 2010 and claims to have over 1,000 members. This is obviously a guestimate, a lot of members could have been hiding and/or seeking during the headcount.

Apparently baseball, softball, surfing, skateboarding, karate and sports climbing (whatever the hell that is) are being considered for Tokyo, so we need a concerted Olympic effort to get behind the professor and lobby for hide-and-seek, if we can find him.

Maybe he is out playing that interesting variant — "hide-and-seek by yourself" which is also known as hitori kakurenbo, though that sounds a little too strange, even for the IOC, and would be awkward to commentate.

The sporting chaps of Monty Python made an official and obviously hilarious bid for hide-and-seek to be included as a Olympic sport over 40 years ago. Sadly, the IOC isn't known for its humour.

Hide-and-seek isn't the most bizarre sport to be played/contested/laughed at in the Olympic Games. Far from it. Club swinging had a couple of rotations from 1904 — no, nothing to do with leaving your car keys in a bowl, this was artistically waving ten-pin bowling apparatus-like clubs around.

Live pigeon shooting (as you do) was thankfully blasted from the roster after the sole appearance in 1900, following the invention of clay. Then there was rope climbing — what a thrilling sport for global television — that sadly thudded to the ground in 1932.

My all-time favourite, however, was "distance plunging" (1904) where you basically jumped in a pool and didn't move for a minute. Not dissimilar to when you played "floating corpse" as a kid. You didn't?

Speaking of which, for reasons best known only to a select few, the Olympics still offer up synchronised swimming, which as we know is basically drowning to music in full makeup.

You shouldn't laugh — as you know, in a mind-numbingly staggeringly ridiculous decision, golf and rugby have been added to the program for the upcoming Olympics in Rio, so why not hide-and-seek in 2020?

I say bring it on... coming, ready or not...

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