November 2008 | Vol 1 | Issue 47
Non-disabled non-athletes demand own Olympics
BEIJING. As the Paralympic Games continue in Beijing, uncoordinated and unmotivated people are demanding their own Olympics. "If you're giving Olympic medals to physically disabled people, you have to give them to people who are depressed, comatose, or simply not very athletic," said a lobbyist, adding that it was time to stop discriminating against the non-disabled.
Human rights lawyers agree. According to advocate Izzy Cheesecake of 'Off The Couch And Onto The Podium', an action group championing the cause of sedentary Olympic hopefuls, the Paralympics are deeply discriminatory against non-disabled non-athletes.
"There are thousands of reasons why people can't be awarded a gold medal in the 100-metre sprint at the Olympic Games," he told journalists this morning.
"You might be an amputee, or have cerebral palsy. But you also might be too slow, or too fat, or you might have to work late that evening. You might have an upset stomach. Or you promised the kids you'd go to their school play.
"Disabilities are just a tiny fraction of all the reasons most people aren't Olympic champions."
He said that when one examined the event in this way, the decision to give disabled people an Olympics of their own, and to exclude all other possible categories of non-athletic also-rans, seemed to be "a terribly cruel and arbitrary decision".
Meanwhile lobbyists for the proposed Average Olympics say they have had overwhelming interest in various events, with the marathon sleep and the 10-meter stroll for people who just can't be arsed proving the most popular.
"People who just can't be arsed are as deserving of a gold medal as Usain Bolt," said organiser Gladys Craw.
"What this upsurge in enthusiasm shows is that people who can't be arsed are getting up and doing it for themselves."
However she said that some events were still being debated, adding that pistol-shooting for the clinically depressed would have to be closely monitored to prevent "unpleasant scenes of self-extermination that might sour the mood of Olympic exuberance".
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