The 2024 Summer Olympics arrived with an opening ceremony that showed off many landmarks of Paris. Boatloads of athletes floated down the Seine waving flags and cheering as they neared the Eiffel Tower.

When the actual competition began the next day, I learned that you had to have your television remote in hand because events were spread out over five channels.

By channel surfing, which by the way is not an Olympic event, I found a live event called Table Tennis. It turns out that Table Tennis, in many ways, looks like a game I played in my youth that we called Ping Pong.

Ping pong originated in England in the 19th century. It was an after-dinner amusement for the upper class. It was played on makeshift equipment where thin books were used as paddles. A row of thicker books were lined up in the middle of a table as the net. The ball they used was a rounded cork or sometimes a small rubber ball.

The game was not invented by Charlie Ping nor Samuel Pong. The name comes from the sound made when the ball was hit across the table. This Olympic game looks so different from when I used to play in my friend’s basement.

For openers, they held the paddles in a unique way. We used to grip the handle and use it like a small tennis racket. The two men competing in the Olympics held the handle in the open palm of their hand as if they were holding a small tray. 

The biggest change was in the service. We used to take the ping pong ball and bounce it a few inches off the table and then hit it with our paddle. The matches I watched at the Olympics offered a whole new concept of how to serve the ball. The server tossed the ball a few feet up in the air and waited until it almost came to the surface of the table. The announcer said that technique was advanced by the Chinese who revolutionized the game of ping pong. By tossing the ball up in the air like a tennis serve, it forces your opponent to pay more attention to the flight of the ball than where you are aiming your paddle. It is actually a brilliant strategy.

Eventually I started channel surfing and saw some of the bizarre competitions they had in the Olympics. They have an event called “Synchronized Diving.” I watched as two women walked with identical precision to the edge of the high platform. Standing apart, they simultaneously dived incorporating identical twists and turns. If they did not do every move identically, including landing into the water at the same time they lost points.

Watching it, I began to think of other Olympic events that would draw a large audience. Here are some suggestions.

1.SYNChRONIZED CANNONBALL JUMP. Two overweight teammates leap off the 10-meter dive platform attempting to mimic each other before hitting the water at the same time. Bonus points are awarded for the biggest splash. 

2.PAPER AIRPLANE FLYING. Competitors are provided with paper and scissors. They are allotted 5 minutes to construct a paper airplane. Then they launch their plane attempting to combine one trick such as a loop-to-loop before the plane lands.

3.REARVIEW CAMERA SLALOM. New cars are required to have a rearview camera on the dashboard. But I find using it to back up into a parking space to be a challenge. In this slalom, the windows are blacked out and competitors must rely on the rearview camera to traverse the100 yard winding path in the fastest time.

4.CHANNEL SURFING. While holding the remote control in one hand, participants must find the television channel that is covering “Boulder Climbing” which is an actual event.

5.PICKLEBALL. Come on people…you know it’s just a matter of time before this becomes an Olympic Event. I bet it will be added for the 2028 games in Los Angeles.

Hudson Cooper is a resident of Sullivan County, a writer, comedian and actor.