The Summer Olympics: That magical time every four years where you spend hours watching crazy sports you forgot existed, and even though you are never fully clear on any of the actual rules or gameplay strategies.
But in a sports-crazed culture—where baseball, basketball and football make up hours of primetime TV each night—why not expand your athletic horizons? Here’s a look at 10 insane Olympic events that we’d totally watch on TV all year round.
(Just a quick note, because of copyright rules, we couldn’t embed actual Olympic footage, but each clip still captures the magic of events like fancy horse dancing).
Speed Walking
There really seems like there is no good reason for this even to exist considering that these athletes are completely capable of just running if they wanted to.
But, watching these clips makes us want to break out our Curry 2s and head to the local mall at 6 a.m. for a good ole fashion briskly paced stroll.
Table Tennis
Real talk: We could watch this all day.
Hammer Throw
OK, so the real thrill of this one is that every single time it’s attempted it looks like an insane, possibly horrific sports blooper just waiting to happen.
Handball
At the risk of sounding completely ignorant to international athletics, this looks like a sport that was invented for some cool movie about the future. We still don’t understand the rules, but these highlights look awesome.
Air Pistols (The Rapid-Fire Event)
Literally just a bunch of people standing motionless shooting large BB guns for like an hour. There are literally people weeping in this video, so we’ve got to be missing something.
Trampolining
Trampoliners are having more fun than anyone at the Olympics.
Track Cycling
Watching these dudes ride around this indoor race track is at least as entertaining as NASCAR. There’s no reason this couldn’t be television gold. Plus, it look like a ton of fun to try.
Doubles Canoe Slalom
Hands down the most unsafe of all Olympic events: It’s basically two people crammed in a tiny boat attempting to navigate their way through an insane white water obstacle course.
Dressage
Ahh, the ancient art of fancy horse dancing: The world’s only international sport that requires a top hat as part of the uniform.
Steeplechase
What could possibly make hurdling large tripping hazards while running at a full sprint even more difficult and dangerous? How about adding giant water hazards behind the hurdles!
