Amidst all the controversy, back-door deals-and let’s not forget the bribery scandal-the Winter Olympics are going ahead as planned. This year’s edition of the Winter Olympics saw the introduction of several new Olympic sports, such as skeleton, women’s bobsled and snowboard half-pipe. Of course with every Olympics, there are always a few sports that just don’t make the grade and are rejected by the International Olympic Committee. Here is a selection we found under the seat of an IOC member’s new BMW.
Bear-flushing: A sport traditionally practised in the Ural mountains. Bear flushing has also garnered popularity within the extreme sports community in recent years. The flusher must run into a hibernating bear’s cave and remain there for 60 seconds, ringing a cowbell all the while. The more limbs the flusher comes back with, the more points they earn. The Russians were heavily favoured in this competition, however the nature of the sport makes for bad television, as the caves are far too small to fit the international press corps inside.
Strip Luge: A sport similar to luge, except that the slider does not use a sled of any kind; rather, they must strip and slide down the track naked. To the dismay of the Fox network, the IOC had several problems with this suggestion. Their concerns included the long brown streak left on the track by each competitor, suitability for television broadcast, and the objections of the predominantly Mormon host city.
Super-High Slalom: A variation on traditional super-giant slalom designed to add more difficulty to Super-G. The Super-H skier gets stoned at the top of the hill, then has to negotiate a number of concrete obstacles on their way down. For fear of the resulting drug testing logistical nightmare, the IOC kyboshed this plan.
Hotel Room Trashing: A demonstration sport at Nagano, the IOC was impressed by the media ratings and was going to grant the sport full medal status. However, it was felt that the Americans would have an unfair advantage because of their experience, so the IOC turned down the idea.
Slow Skating: An interesting idea that piqued the curiosity of many senior IOC members, but never caught on with amateur athletes. The idea was to skate around an oval as in speed skating, but with the winner being the last to cross the finish line. Determined to be beyond Olympic time constraints, the idea was abandoned, dashing the medal hopes of many desert and tropical nations.
Marshmallow Roasting: An odd idea, intended to be the link between super athlete and super coach potato. With the Olympic flame fed by nothing more than sporting ethics anyway, why not put it to good use? The marshmallows would have been judged for carmelization, gooeyness and texture. Unfortunately, this event was stymied by a massive mallow-fruit crop failure in Belize and a shortage of figure-skating judges. The IOC was also apprehensive that people would start to look at the Winter Games as a lacklustre sporting event completely riddled with corruption, cheating and bribery.