Though it’s not true, as has been widely assumed, that it’s Australia’s fault breakdancing was dropped from the Olympics, it does present certain opportunities in the furtherance of trans-Tasman rivalry.
Only a misery guts could fail to admire the warm-hearted unembarrassability of our neighbour’s entrant, Raygun, with her “roo ‘n’ roll” performance. The decision to discontinue the category was made before her debut, and was overwhelmingly based on the difficulty of judging feats the true skilfulness of which is a matter of interpretation. As in, it might be clever but isn’t it also a bit daft, even when done well? It’s also why ski ballet and solo synchronised swimming, which were once Olympic events – seriously! – were abandoned.
To overtrump Australia’s unfortunate brush with a Games “not achieved” rating, it’s time New Zealand sought Olympic status for a couple of its unsung national sports.
First, trailer-backing. It’s a skill highly prized in Aotearoa, but is the very definition of elite, as only a tiny percentage of the population is truly adept. It takes most people years merely to grasp the basic mechanics of it. Some, like the writer, have been disqualified for life on the grounds of being an absolute menace. Few are chosen to be the maestro trailer-backers among us. Yet weekend traffic hold-ups in the suburbs show just how many people are already in serious training for Olympic contention.
The sport’s excitement is governed by the varying size and instability of the load, and the randomness of obstacles on the course: unmowed berms, straggling pedestrians and lurching cargo, like the hulking great chest freezer you bought off Trade Me that nearly demolished the letter box.
Upgrading it to an elite standard, however, would require making the ultimate challenging factor mandatory: the “helpful” chap who appears from nowhere and stands by, waving his arms around in a purposeful but unintelligible fashion. This will be especially challenging for male competitors who will likely never have tried to back a trailer under these circumstances. Women, to whom this distraction frequently occurs – even when they’re competently parallel-parking a wee hatchback – would come to the sport with superior match-fitness, so obviously it would have to be separately contested.
As for recruiting Olympic-worthy arm wavers, they would surely simply materialise in the stadium, as they do in the wild.
Further global competitive potential: weka dodging. The ability to eat a packed lunch without a team of weka thieving most of it, along with one’s wallet, takes years of hard training. It’s a sport many tourists have dabbled in, so would start with international recognition. Weka need no training; rather, they train the human athlete, who has to develop very fast-twitch muscle responses indeed not to lose their lunch.
Naturally, the rules would mandate some food being left in a bag on the ground and some stashed in the athlete’s pocket, with competitors required to take an “Aw, what a cute bird!” snapshot before defending the food. Chasing and swearing would be allowed, but by that stage, you’d be into penalty points.
For the Winter Olympics, New Zealand might submit the allied discipline of kea baiting – though it would need to be carefully explained that the baiting is done by the kea. Teams of athletes could compete by doing what legions of New Zealand campers have always done: defending their campsite from larcenous parrots.
Points off according to the degree of car and tent dismantlement and unpaired footwear.
The athleticism required to fend off protected native fauna using nothing but flapping arms and colourful language would be a heroic addition to world sports.
Best of all, unlike some other non-human Olympians, our birds would need no coercion or even training.
Though, no matter who won medals, they’d nick them.
