Well, I thought I’d seen it all on Google Trends. I also counted on the Olympics to give me some quality material to work with, but it’s been pretty boring and predictable…until today. I looked up what all the excitement was about Spain’s Synchronized Swimmers and found out their almost unbelievable plan.

You might assume that there’s nothing funny about synchronized swimming. Let’s review…

And this…

Nothing yet? How about this?

See what I mean?

Now, picture this. The Spanish synchronized swimming team has devised a way to stand out from the competition that no one’s considered before. Yes, they’re doing far more than corpse-like pancake makeup and enough sequins to choke Liberace. Child’s play. Their brilliant idea is to use illuminated costumes for their next routine. I don’t mean illuminated as in helping someone understand. I mean as in to decorate with lights. Not things like lights, actual lights. Now, for those paying attention, what do lights traditionally need to work? Correct! Electricity. Wait, I’ve got one more for you. What doesn’t mix well with electricity and is somewhat critical to the sport of swimming?

By now, you’ve put it all together. They are planning to wear costumes with actual lights. Relax though, they are battery-powered. What’s more amazing besides the complete lack of understanding of basic electric safety is that someone has to investigate to see if this is legal. And, get this, there’s actually a governing body for just this purpose: FINA (Fédération Internationale de Natation…cool accents).

FINA: Water is Our World…as long as you aren’t living in the Northern Hemisphere, Europe or Asia. What’s with the position of the stars anyway?

Andrea Fuentes is one of the Spanish Swimmers who wants to wear the costumes. She explained the situation with FINA: “Their excuse is that you cannot use accessories, but this is not an accessory because otherwise sequins would be an accessory too.” So, heaven knows that without sequins, this sport is basically doomed, so they really have to approve of the lights. She added (seriously, I’m not making these up): “It is too innovative for such a conservative sport.” Who knew synchronized swimming was so conservative?

Incidentally, several other innovative ideas in other sports were proposed by forward-thinking athletes this week at the Olympics. Each is still under consideration:

• Live human targets for the javelin
• Rabid Grizzly Bears “motivating” marathon runners
• Combining Archery and Soccer at a single location at the same time
• Concrete “landing zones” for platform diving
• Obstacles (tiger pits, swinging wrecking balls, etc.) for the floor exercise

No word one when these might be approved.

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Posted on August 19th, 2008 by Jonathan - Everyone But You
Filed under: Olympics, Sports

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