Olympic athletes.
For those who haven’t heard, quidditch is an imaginary sport that was created by author J.K. Rowling in her famous Harry Potter series, and it features teams of young wizards flying around on broomsticks, trying to throw a ball through a hoop. It’s sort of like lacrosse, but imaginary and with magic. Of course, that never stopped scores of hipsters across the world from forming upstart quidditch leagues, in which they dressed like Harry Potter characters while pretending to fly around on brooms.
Translated: They stick brooms between their legs and run around in fields.
So despite this “sport” being based on a magical game from a series of children’s books, the people who “play” it believe that now is the time for the Olympics to take them seriously.
“Most people who play are nerds but we have a lot of jocks or athletes playing this sport as well, some of whom have never even read the Harry Potter books,” Benepe, dressed in a three-piece suit and top hat, told Reuters.
“We thought it would be a great time to piggy-back off the Olympics, being held in the home country of Harry Potter, and show people this is an exciting sport. There are a lot more ridiculous sports in the Olympics than quidditch.” (Via Reuters)
To be fair, I really do respect what the people who are behind quidditch are trying to do with their mission statement of being “dedicated to promoting the sport of quidditch and inspiring young people to lead physically active and socially engaged lives”. That’s honorable, because God knows our fat little piggy kids could use the exercise, lest they end up on Skinny Gossip’s sh*t list.
But to say there are more ridiculous sports in the Olympics? Name them. Because I don’t mean to be a dick, but if your selling point is that quidditch is whimsical and fun while physically demanding – like rugby with knock-knock jokes – you shouldn’t be crapping all over a bunch of world class athletes who have been training their whole lives to compete in these time-honored sports. Not cool, Muggles.
After the jump, the quidditch nerds state their Olympic case.
(Hat tip to Robopanda.)
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Ridiculous sports in the Summer Olympics:
Synchronized swimming
All the horse stuff
Maybe trampoline/rhythmic gymnastics
Probably a few others. Doesn’t mean Quidditch isn’t also a little ridiculous, just saying, there’s stuff in the Olympics that seem a little odd.
Lobster Mobster beat me to those three/four events (note: I didn’t call them sports). I would also include ping pong kinda pathetic, but not necessarily more pathetic than imaginary wizard ball.
I am glad they’ve dumped ballroom dancing and since Burnsy mentioned lacrosse, where is that? Not played in enough countries, I suspect. Ultimate would be a fantastic Olympic sport, but again, probably not international enough (there are only like 20 counties at worlds right now). But then are badminton, archery, fencing, judo, and handball that widespread? I mean how are baseball and softball removed but judo survives?
Baseball and softball are very North American centric things with, aside from Japan, little global context. Everything else while not as exciting necessarily has a much larger international base of competitors and competitions.
But aside from all of that, Ultimate, really? I’m all for promoting a sport you’ve personally played or are playing but, thats just too much.
The Olympic sport-selection is based on a sport having a certain number of participants competing in a certain number of countries around the world. You’re telling me that competitive ping pong leagues are more prevalent around the world than baseball? It’s basically the European sports championships that they allow other countries to compete in (and then the Americans and Australians win all the medals).
As for ultimate, I think it would make a good Olympic sport, like lacrosse (lots of scoring, no need for facilities not already in use, good spectator sport, highly athletic) but as I said, it’s likely not widespread enough, although there are 23 countries competing at Worlds and from all six continents (not Antarctica, obviously). Folks still confuse it with disc golf and it carries the old stoner stigma, but honestly, ping pong? Rhythmic gymnastics? They dance around with ribbons and big rings. Horse dancing?
water polo
As a quidditch player and reader of With Leather, I’m a bit disappointed with the coverage. I’m fine with you making jokes, it’s just that I expect more original/stronger jokes from WL. Also, your opening photo is wrong. Those aren’t Olympic athletes, they’re regular players. A funnier photo would have been of the teams in their country uniforms (which range from awesome looking to kind of silly). We don’t think we’re wizards or magic is real. We like it because it’s a fun game and a good community to play with. I’ve found on a whole that quidditch players have better sportsmanship than recreation level football and softball players. There are players that want to remove the broom, but most players want to keep it because it makes the game more challenging. Imagine playing baseball, but you had to catch and throw the ball with the same hand. It adds to the fun of it.
As for Benepe, the top hat and three piece suit are fun. How much more awesome would sports be if the commisioners wore costumes? The basketball drafting has been terrible; throw in some silly costumes and suddenly it’s less boring. (still boring, but at least there’s a reason to watch for a few minutes instead of waiting for it to be posted online).
I wouldn’t call it rugby with knock knock jokes; I’d call it rugby but with the inventiveness of The Doctor. Because the rules are lose enough and the sport’s still new, there have been some really crazy moves and plays that could never work in other sports.
Amusing to me: you put “sport” and “play” in quotes, when your sports site is most well known for it’s awesome coverage of pro wrestling.
Nothing in this post makes me think any differently about quidditch, and I cannot believe we are discussing quidditch, but that was a fantastic point about the wrestling. Besides Kate Upton’s boobs, I’m sure nothing gets you guys more visits, but stop it with the wrestling. You’d get a lot of visits if you had a daily Beiber update, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for civilization for such a thing to exist.
The only thing I care about is rugby becoming an Olympic sport. The fact that it is not an Olympic sport (15s) is just absurd. It has a huge fan base and competition at a world class level. There is enough competition that it wouldn’t just be one team winning each year (just look at how many times New Zealand has won the world cup in the past 20 years).
They had to cancel it when the US won gold in 1920 and 24. The world wasn’t prepared for that kind of dominance.
But, yeah, you’d think a sport with a World Cup could get in the Olympics.
Haha. Yeah, when I read about the fact that the USA won the gold in rugby back in the day it was such a hilarious thing to ponder based on how the USA team is not near top 10 material any more.