Faster, higher, smarter: the new Olympic Games

I hereby announce my new Games to carry the torch of intelligence. Let thought replace sport! Mind over muscle!

Of course, there’ll also be lots of quizzes – a form of sport – provided by Millionaire Hot Seat, Hard Quiz and Mastermind. Picture: David Caird.

I am opposed to sport on many grounds. Also on fields, ovals, courts and arenas. Sport leads to hamstring injuries, concussion, pulled muscles, noxious nationalism, drug scandals, emotional problems, wrecked rooms and poor behaviour on aircraft. Hence my ongoing efforts to stamp it out. Sport is almost as dangerous as religion.

Decades ago I helped the late, great Melbourne journalist Keith Dunstan launch his Anti-Football League, and every year we would ritualistically destroy one of the VFL’s silly inflated bladders – a Denzil Don brand footy, as I recall. We’d blow it up or have an elephant stomp on it, right there in the middle of the MCG.

When this brave campaign failed to gain universal support I moved to Sydney and tried a different tactic. Disturbed by the violence in rugby league – all those lumbering brutes fighting over a ball – I recommended giving each team member a ball of his own to play with. Problem solved. Sadly, officials refused to listen.

So I changed tack again, announcing the establishment of the RSPCB. Yes, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Balls. From soccer to ping-pong, golf to billiards, poor hapless innocent little balls are kicked, whacked, belted and thumped with boots, bats and clubs. This savagery must be stopped, I insisted. But once again, the campaign yielded disappointing results. I didn’t even recruit enough members for a cricket team.

So this is it. My final effort. If people demand competition, let it be of brain rather than brawn. I hereby announce my new Olympic Games – to carry the torch of intelligence. Let thought replace sport! Mind over muscle! Tossing ideas instead of javelins! If you must have conflict, let it be of ideas! Let’s put arguments instead of putting shots! Discussions, not discus!

Instead of the sprint, we’ll have a race to write a short story. Or mirror the marathon by tackling something a little longer, along the lines of Proust’s seven-volume À la Recherche du Temps Perdu. We’ll replace feats of strength with feats of memory, with Mensa members fighting to recall the entire text of the Bible or Koran, thus encouraging religious tolerance. Fans of the high jump will thrill instead to tests for high IQ. Of course, there’ll also be lots of quizzes – a form of sport – provided by Millionaire Hot Seat, Hard Quiz and Mastermind.

Book reading instead of bike riding or boat rowing. Hear the crowds cheer as fast-readers shave seconds off a chapter. And that’s before we add other artistic pursuits to the program. Portraiture! Landscape painting! Olympic opera! Choral singing! Duets instead of mixed doubles! Ballet instead of gymnastics, though they obviously overlap.

As you might have noticed, there is a shortage of intelligence in the community – as seen in anti-vax demonstrations and in the cognitively challenged dolts we elect to our parliaments and corporate boards. Now is the time to find new heroes – and candidates – in the ranks of the thoughtful, the literate. I’m confident of bipartisan support from One Nation and the Nats.

Thought instead of sport. And think about this: my Mind Games, the Olympics of the Intellect, will not bankrupt the host city by demanding costly new buildings and arenas. They can be held at Oxford, the ANU, Harvard, UNSW, Cambridge. Training facilities? TAFE, plus our state schools and public libraries. Let the games begin. I see my old mate Barry Jones carrying the torch and lighting the cauldron.