Congrats to Canada on their Ice Dancing gold (photo from makeupanid @ Flickr)

In the last two weeks, whenever I turned on the TV to watch Olympic-themed commercials, I ended up watching a bit of the Olympics too. Intrigued, I ended up witnessing some of these soaring beasts of frightening athletic prowess who flashed across the screen armed only with their wits, as well as their skis, their skates, and even their brooms. Even the least among these individuals, the ice dancers – who Adam Toth so rubbishy labeled the “relief pitchers of the ice genre” – were amazing individuals. And yet, even as I sat with goldfish scattered on the couch around me, I felt the weight of seeping deception…

To a large extent, I agreed with the words of southern-hemispherical cartography-correspondent and fellow Spectator writer Adam Toth. Some sports simply seem to ring a toll of inadequacy – curling has it’s share of skeptics; ice dancing has received a menacing glare or two; hell, the snowman-building competition hasn’t even received any televised coverage!

So what are supposed to do then?! Sit back like Adam Toth and say, “ah, ritz and crackles! I’ll still applaud, but nothing in the world ever changes, so why try? F*ck it.” I’m sorry Adam, but this just isn’t the answer, and John Hodgman will corroborate my thesis of change:

(click here to see clip at DailyShow.com) (click here to see clip at hulu.com)

True, perhaps the Winter Olympics no longer truly affect us. We do not have that U.S./Soviet rivalry to keep the spirit of competition alive. I mean sure, we tried to start up a rivalry with the Netherlands, but then we realized that it was the Netherlands. It just didn’t work out.  Nevertheless, Adam himself once struck a tone of progressive possibility in the suggestion of combined events – and indeed, the solution is thus: we must turn every sport into a biathlon. Or, if they are already a biathlon, make it a triathlon, and so on. Clearly, this has proven most effective with the addition of guns – I mean, we may not have understood how cross-country skiing and rifle shooting went together at first, but now it’s as common as PB&J!

Fun Fact: Most Biathloners like to eat PB&J sandwiches (photo from Steven Rusk at Flickr)

For instance, let’s take Adam’s concern: we take the ice dancers, and we arm them. In addition, we can arm the skiers, the bobsledders, and the shuffleboarders. And then, in two years, we attack the Summer Olympics: we arm the runners, the volleyballers, and the swimmers. And don’t worry, the swimmers’ weapons will be marine-equipped, since they will be expected to hunt aquatic life. Hence the creation of the best Olympic sport of all time: the 400 metre / APS-underwater Assault Rifle biathlon.

Hello London.

I cannot wait until 2012.