In Which I Propose a New Olympic Event
Introducing the Modern Parentathlon
The Olympics kicked off this weekend, and I couldn’t be happier.
Now, there are some people who stay up-to-date on Olympic sports even in non-Olympic years. They understand not just the basic rules of the sports on display in Paris, but they also know the athletes favored to win this year and the particular strategies they’ll employ in their pursuit of gold.
I am not one of those people.
No, I am a thoroughly average Olympics viewer—an idiot, if you will.
I tune in once every four years and experience each of these sports anew, having purged anything I learned in the previous Olympiad like Guy Pearce’s character in Memento. My spotless mind allows me to delight in the experience of watching Canoe Slalom or Handball or Rugby Sevens anew each time, and declare myself both an expert and a big fan after twenty minutes of viewing.
One event in particular fascinates me most, though, and that’s the Modern Pentathlon.
The format of the event has varied over the years—I know this because I just read it on Wikipedia—but the basics are the same: athletes compete in fencing, swimming, running, shooting and equestrian show-jumping.
Sounds a bit scattershot, right?
Well, there’s actually a clear thesis statement to it all.
As the events of the ancient pentathlon were modeled after the skills of the ideal soldier to defend a fortification of that time, Coubertin created the contest to simulate the experience of a 19th-century cavalry soldier behind enemy lines: he must ride an unfamiliar horse, fight enemies with pistol and sword, swim, and run to return to his own soldiers. (Wikipedia)
That actually makes a good bit of sense!
Of course, it’s not terribly modern. Warfare changed pretty dramatically throughout the 20th century, starting pretty quickly after the sport’s introduction in the 1912 Olympics. A soldier dropped behind enemy lines isn’t going to do a lot of swordfighting these days, y’know?
Changes are already pending for the sport. The equestrian element is slated to be removed from modern pentathlon in time for the 2028 Los Angeles Games (a shift precipitated by an ugly incident between a German coach and a recalcitrant horse in the 2021 Tokyo Games), with an obstacle course run taking its place.
That’s a good start, but you know what? It’s still not terribly relevant to modern life, least of all my modern life.
With that in mind, I’m here today to propose a new Olympic multi-sport event: The Modern Parentathlon.
Where the other event simulates the experience of a 19th-century cavalryman stranded behind enemy lines, this one seeks to replicate the experience of a parent of two young children on a summer Saturday afternoon.
Sounds relaxing, right?
It’s a bit more challenging than you might think.
Let’s review the events.
Aquatic Sports
This simulated Saturday begins with a trip to the pool.
400m Burdened Swim
It’s one thing to swim fast when you have perfect form and optimized hydrodynamics. It’s a far different event when you’re weighted down by two children who say CARRY ME, DADDY! the second you get in the pool.
To simulate this experience, swimmers will have two weighted sacks attached to their shoulders—25 kilograms and 20 kg, roughly the weight of a 7-year-old boy and a 5-year old girl. These weights will be attached loosely with velcro straps, and will likely come undone at some point during the swim. They will be designed to sink to the bottom quickly; for reasons I should not have to enumerate here, swimmers cannot allow this to happen.
The Yeet and Repeat
After the distance swim is completed, the athletes will be asked to hurl the 20-kg weighted sack as far as they can while treading water in the pool, because the kids saw another parent throw their kid and now they, too, wish to be yeeted.
Sounds easy enough, right?
DO IT AGAIN, DADDY!
That’s right, they now have to throw that same weight four more times.
Any throw that lands shorter than the previous ones will incur a points deduction that represents the child’s sudden and painful disappointment in your throwing abilities. This will necessitate careful strategizing by the competitors—you’ll want to throw as far as you possibly can, but within the constraints of what you can replicate multiple times over.
Once those five throws are complete, the process will repeat with the larger weight.
YOU DID IT FOR HER!!!
Track and Field
We’ve left the pool, and now we’re headed home. It should be easier from here, right?
Well, we’ll see about that.
400m Multi-Carry
You had to stop for groceries on the way home from the pool, and the kids talked you into getting them vanilla steamers at the in-store Starbucks, even though it is 86 degrees outside. You will now have to get back to the car, get everyone in, get home, and get into the house. The children will not carry a single thing.
To simulate this experience, athletes will run 400m while carrying:
six full plastic grocery bags, one of which already has a tear in it
three metal water bottles
two paper cups filled with 160-degree liquid (you requested kid temperature, but they did it at normal temperature, and so the kids did not drink any on the way home)
a large cheese pizza (you refused to pay pool snack bar prices for dinner, but didn’t have anything better planned for dinner)
this course will also require competitors to pass through two car doors, two regular doors with loose knobs they’ve been meaning to fix, and two sets of stairs, the latter of which will have a large dog waiting at the top.
Halfway through the race, a fourth water bottle will be handed to competitors, representing a child who is holding nothing else but wants you to carry it, too.
Any item dropped will have to be retrieved, but if one of the vanilla steamers is spilled, you will have to start over from the beginning—a penalty representing a return trip to the in-store Starbucks.
Equestrian
You thought I was going to get rid of horses? Absolutely not.
The ugly incident in Tokyo notwithstanding, I think the “you have to deal with an unfamiliar horse” thing is the best (read: funniest) part of the modern pentathlon—and it’s also perfect for replicating the process of getting two overstimulated children to bed.
(At 8pm every night, my child are unfamiliar horses.)
Competitors will be charged with getting two unfamiliar horses into separate pens located 50m apart from each other, and keeping them both in there. They will not be allowed to close the pen doors—the horses had a bad dream last time you did—and the process is not complete until both are in their pens at the same time for at least five minutes.
My wife has some experience with horses, and her take on equestrian events is that “really, it comes down to whether your horse feels like doing it today or not, and you don’t have much control over that”.
This also applies when putting two children to bed.
I think this event would make for riveting television.
Track and Field (Part II)
Yep, we’re back to the track—the kids are finally asleep in bed, but can you escape their rooms and finally get to your destination (the couch)?
Should be easy—but there’s obstacles in the way.
400m Brick Run
Athletes will be tasked with running this distance barefoot on a track that has been strewn with assorted Legos. The stadium lights will be dimmed low enough to make the Legos near-impossible to see, and athletes will be fitted with microphones. Any sound they make louder than a whispered “DANGIT” will incur a significant time penalty, which represents time spent getting a child back to bed.
Marksmanship
This might be a surprising inclusion here, but it’s not what you think.
In this final scenario, the children have been in bed for one hour, and you are now finally, blissfully watching television—but those programs aren’t always appropriate for children’s eyes. You have be to fast with the remote when a kid gets up from bed, and that’s the skill on display here.
Surf ‘n’ Shoot
Competitors will be situated 20m away from a bank of sixteen televisions. Every ten seconds, the televisions will cycle through what they’re showing, and four of them will be showing something inappropriate—horror movies, Game of Thrones, Euphoria, the nightly news, the carriage scene from Bridgerton, etc. Competitors will be armed with a laser-precise remote control, and when an alarm sounds (without warning) they will have five seconds to identify and turn off the four objectionable TVs before their child is scarred for life.
What are you guys watching?
Just a cooking show, honey. Go back to bed.
The Medal Ceremony
There are no medals for this event.
Frankly, it’d just be too much trouble; the kids would fight over who gets to try it on first. Instead, the winning competitors will get to sit in their car for an extra thirty minutes after the event, listening to a podcast in peace or just quietly sobbing.
I will fight tooth and nail to win.
—Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)
Got an event you’d add to the Modern Parentathlon? Let’s hear it!
Excellent event. I'm out of medal contention by the first heat in the pool.
Might I add the 800m yoked sleigh, which is a improperly balanced Costco shopping cart with a slightly-too-old kid mounted on the end of it, making it challenging to turn corners or navigate tight aisles?
Cooking a meal while simultaneously admiring the artwork made at school that day, having several conversations about a kids show that you’ve never paid attention to, and admonishing appropriately when the child gets obsessed with a new mildly inappropriate word (my daughter thinks “tootybutt” is the funniest thing you can say, and does so constantly). Also, you must prepare no less than two separate meals for the child, so they might actually eat something.
Points for child happiness at the end and for edibility of the meal. Deductions for the child refusing any of the prepared food, to reflect the time loss of making yet another sandwich.