Empire Attire

by: Nathaniel Cook

Over the last month or so, we here at Empire have walked you through some of the less than illustrious sports that were included in the Olympic Games before Freeskiing. We’ve covered 4 sports from Bobsledding to Speed Skiing. Today, however, we hit our top spot, and nothing we’ve written about even approaches the absurdity and insipidness of:

1. Steeplechase

If you were to ask me whether I went out of my way to unnecessarily jump into puddles of water in the street, my answer would be a simple: no. In fact, most of us outgrew jumping into puddles as a pastime when we turned four, and would likely be pretty pissed off if we found ourselves in one now. Moreover, if you saw another adult wistfully running from puddle to puddle, jumping in them with dedicated concentration, you may consider calling the police.
However, as with the other sports in this series, the Olympics does few things better than making the semi-maniacal into international athletes. The scale of ludicrousness here, however, dwarfs our other specimens. In fact, in the course of research for this piece, I’m now convinced that this sport must actually be an in-joke, a wink at the audience, or a caustic comment on modern society, I’ve yet to decide..

Essentially, Steeplechase is a marriage of the aforementioned puddle jumpers and hurdling. What starts out as just another seemingly boring variation of running takes a turn for the outrageous and stupefying when, on the back turn, the runners launch over a hurdle into a two foot deep pool of water. Let me stop here and ask the question. Why? What does a puddle of water have to with anything? That is to say, I get that sports are really a set of abstractions to begin with, but throwing something of such little consequence and muddled clarity into an already stretched metaphor only serves to break down the suspension of disbelief. It reminds me of how ridiculous the whole idea of sports really can be. I don’t want to put the whole show on trial, as after these existential questionings, I realize I’m just physically shaken by the stupidity of Steeplechase alone. Athleticism, grace, and demonstrations of the seemingly impossible are why we tune in to sports, and why we continue to follow them year after year. Where Steeplechase fails to achieve this is in the irrelevant novelties that it attempts to slip by the viewer.

So, the next time you feel like watching a group of seemingly deranged grown men frolic like Julie Andrews around 3000m of track, intermittently stopping to coyly splash around, look no further than the Steeplechase event. If, however, you prefer the real deal, watching athletes perform the unimaginable, flip over to the Olympic’s newest sport, Freeskiing. It’s about damn time.