Strangely Naked

It’s that time of year again, when countries gather their best and most subtly doped-up to compete and have wild orgies in the Olympic Village with other astounding physical specimens crafted through obsessive training, genetics and some cocktail of physical enhancements in whatever country paid the Olympic committee enough for the honor of a brief cash insurgence. That’s right, obscure sports fans, it’s Winter Olympics time!

Are you a fan of sliding downhill? Perhaps you like sliding horizontally, or fancy horizontal sliding, or sliding an object? Then the Winter Olympics are for you! “But I don’t know any of the sports, they confuse and scare me. Also, I’m tired of being cold and thinking about the cold.” Well don’t worry, I have the entire slate of events simplified so even the ardent Costa Rican (who are not participating again this Winter Olympics) can understand and enjoy this year’s games.

The Games:

Alpine Skiing: People slide down a hill really fast on two planks swishing back and forth around poles.

Biathlon: People try to slide horizontally on two planks as fast as they can while shooting guns at targets. How team USA loses at this event ever is probably because they aren’t using an automatic rifle with a bump stock at an elementary school.

Bobsled: Whoever can jump in their sliding sled down a half-tube down the hill the fastest. The competition for the viewer is upon seeing the Jamaican Bobsled team and not thinking about the song from Cool Runnings.

Cross Country Skiing: It’s a race seeing who can swish swish their two planks fastest horizontally. No guns this time.

Curling: It’s ice-shuffleboard.

Figure Skating: People see who can slide themselves on ice the prettiest. If you get dizzy easily or shiny outfits trigger seizures, or if you don’t like sporting competitions determined by subjectivity, maybe skip this one.

Freestyle Skiing/Snowboarding: Whether it’s one plank or two, competitors slide back and forth down a half-pipe hopping out and spinning or flipping a bunch. Also not for people who prefer objective outcomes to sports.

Ice Hockey: Two teams compete to push a tiny disc into their opponent’s tiny net. It’s a sanitized version of a sport populated by dudes with less teeth than team members.

Luge: Almost exactly like the bobsled, but without the covering. It’s like naked bobsled, except not traditionally nude, y’know, more like naked/exposed to the track.

Nordic Combined: It’s ski jumping and cross country skiing…combined! Look, the Winter Olympics are a lot like Taco Bell, they really only have like three-to-five ingredients that they can mix and repackage in different ways.

Skeleton: The same as Luge, except they face a different way. If you didn’t get tired of bobsled, or luge, this will certainly convince you to maybe read a book instead.

Ski Jumping: You take two planks strapped to a competitor’s feet, push them down the hill, they hit a ramp and are expected to do a little flippity dippity spin in the air. Same goes for Snowboard jumping.

Speed Skating: Have you ever been to a roller rink and thought, “I wish there was less disco music and more people trying to go as fast as they can in an oval?” This is your sport!

That’s it. That’s your full slate of wintery competition. Enjoy the exaggerated-yet-controlled sliding experiences. If these sound not that engaging to you, don’t worry, we’ll only be able to have Summer Olympics soon enough.

The Olympic committee once again rejected my idea of additional sports: Snowball Fights, Competitive Snow Sculptures, Polar Bear Dip (who can withstand hypothermia the longest), and Icicle Jousting on the backs of moose. Maybe in four years.