Almanac Other Sports: A Brief History of the Triple Jump and Human Suffering

 

Today I made a return to Sports Day. Some things have changed. Others absolutely have not.

The digital watch had just struck ten when the first vomiting incident was reported. A technicolour hula-hoop on the freshly mown turf. He’d not over-exerted nor breathed in his body-volume in energy drinks. Just an early morning vommie. To open proceedings.

I wandered to the fundraising BBQ. This year it was burnt by the Art Faculty. Disappointingly, I could buy no Picasso Chicken Patties or Last Supper Sausages.

In a relaxed corner, under some trees, there were games for those who find traditional sports unappealing. These included Giant Jenga and Connect Four. These are, of course, London beer-garden pursuits and should be encouraged as they develop essential life skills.

Meanwhile the resident DJ played Eminem, who would appreciate the irony. I imagine he has little truck with athletes and enthusiastically despises them. Even if some now sport Mum’s spaghetti on their singlets — courtesy of an early morning puke.

Much of my day was officiating the triple jump or as it’s variously known: the hop, step and jump, or in certain depraved circles, the hop, skip and jump. For most, it’s an exercise in assured humiliation as they approach the take-off mat with halting trepidation, their adolescent eyes wide with fright.

Often, instead of the triple jump, they then perform a sequence of biomechanical accidents borrowing from John Cleese’s Ministry of Silly Walks, a little boot-scootin’, and the dying buffalo in Apocalypse Now. Participants have three attempts but while I was on rake and tape measure duties, it was mostly one and done. They fled the triple jump as if a spitting cobra was loose.

There must’ve been an Ancient Greek who drunkenly happened across this, in dusty Athens, following much ancient vino.

Christos: Watch this, Aristotle. I call it the triple jump.
Aristotle: Why not simply run from Point Alpha to Point Beta?
Christos: Too sensible. My invention will inflict psychological suffering on schoolchildren for millennia.

Christos then invited others to try it. Some thoughtlessly agreed and inexplicably, it caught on. Hereinafter was set loose centuries of global misery which continues unchecked to this day.

I love many sports and am sympathetic to many athletic pursuits. Running, jumping and throwing all have worldly value. But the triple jump, unlike other physical disciplines, is utterly non-transferable to real life. It may be the most futile human endeavour imaginable.

If a ravenous beast — real or mythical — were on your Hellenic tail, who would break into a hop, skip and jump?

I enjoyed Sports Day. Congratulations to all who won a blue ribbon. Thus, the ancient suffering continues.

 

Read more from Mickey Randall HERE

 

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