Dance fever

The list of Olympic sports for the 2024 Paris Games came out yesterday, and everyone was talking about how break dancing was being added as an Olympic sport.

The Blob has no beef with this, even if break dancing is not, strictly speaking, a sport. But then, there's a whole raft of Olympic sports that aren't really sports, either, if you squint your eyes and look at 'em just right.

As the late, great Dan Jenkins once famously wrote: Cross-country skiing is just how a Swede goes to the 7-Eleven.

Yes, and another name for luge is "sledding." And another name for skeleton is "getting drunk and then sledding." And another name for rhythmic gymnastics is "recess."

And don't get me started on synchronized swimming, which is basically treading water with style.

So, yeah, bring on the break dancing.

I want to see which country will emerge as the Olympic power in break dancing. I want to see who will be the Michael Phelps of break dancing (perhaps Michael Phelps!). I want to see the entire Russian break dancing team get banned for doping, and Torvill and Dean come out of retirement to win the pairs competition, and a huge judging scandal erupt because six of the judges were from Brazil and somehow IndyCar driver Helio Castroneves won the men's gold, even though he wasn't entered.

"Yes, but he's Helio! And he won Dancing With The Stars!" the Brazilian judges will all say.

I want to see this. Then I want to get to work thinking of other cool stuff that ought to be Olympic sports:

1. Lawn Maintenance.

In which the American entry, Lance Thurston Howell III of Gated Swale, California, is disqualified after testing positive for Miracle-Gro.

2. Greco-Roman Eating.

In which the American team, comprised entirely of guys from Indiana, sweep the medals in the Giant Breaded Tenderloin division.

3. The Decatlon.

In which cats from all over the world compete to see who can most haughtily ignore a grueling schedule of ten owners' commands. The Siamese team wins gold, silver and bronze because, let's face it, they're just nasty-ass creatures.

4. Jart  Dodging.

In which there are both Helmeted and Helmetless divisions -- the latter of which is dominated by skeleton racers looking for something hella crazy to do in the summertime.

And last but not least ...

5. Chess Boxing.

Which, believe it or not, is actually a thing that has been around since 1992. Competitors alternate rounds of chess with rounds of boxing.

In the Olympic gold medal round, 8-year-old Bulgarian prodigy Dimitri "Little Goober" Manilova puts his Russian opponent in check with a classic "Hey, Look Over There" gambit -- i.e., shouting "Hey, look over there," and moving his queen into a check position when his opponent looks away. Then he scores a TKO in the boxing segment by tying the Russian's shoelaces together and goading him into chasing him around the ring by shouting "Hey, Ivan! Did your mom have any kids that lived?"

Or something like that.