Outsports has done an upcoming video for SB Nation on the “gayest Olympic sports,” and Cyd immediately suggested men’s trampoline. After watching it this morning, it certainly has a certain sensibility about it -- fun, exciting, flamboyant; basically guys (and women tomorrow) bouncing and twisting and contorting on a trampoline.
When I sent my headline to our contributor Ryan Quinn, he said it should say: “Dong Dong Wins Men’s Boing Boing.” “It’s too easy,” Ryan quipped. Dong Dong won the event, with a Dmitry Ushakov of Russia taking the silver and Lu Chunlong of China the bronze.
Gayest Olympics Headline: Dong Dong Wins Men’s Trampoline
The event is fun, exciting and flamboyant. What’s not to like?
Bill Hanstock has a terrific story with cool animated GIFs showing how much fun it is to watch, and I admit I was hooked. MSNBC showed it live and unlike prime time coverage, it was simply the event, with all the routines showed -- there was no sappy music or shots of parents in the stands. Just wonderful acrobatics with some great camera angle. The finals will be on NBC primetime coverage.
Reps from Cirque du Soleil were on hand and it was clear why. What these guys do is pretty amazing and also with an air of danger not seen in artistic gymnastics. There are crash monitors on hand, ready with mats to throw under an athlete who has gotten out of control. One Portuguese guy slammed hard into the springs, too late for the crash monitor to help.
The athletes are short like artistic gymnasts (5-6 or 5-7 is the norm), but less muscular since they don’t do muscle-building disciplines like still rings or parallel bars. We have a photo gallery showing some of the competitors from London.
London’s Olympic site has a nice primer on the event, highlighting some of the odd terms like fliffus, triffus and Rudy. If marketed properly, this could be a breakout sport in future Olympics. It’s just so damn watchable and the possibility of a crash makes it like NASCAR on springs.
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