Once every two years, the world’s elite athletes descend on Folkestone’s East Cliff to compete in some of the most dangerous and extreme sporting events known to man.
The event is so top secret, even Sky Sports don’t know about it and what video footage and photographs are available after the event are usually taken on camera phones by competitors or the few fans lucky enough to gain access to this exclusive event.
For my friend Luke (known henceforth as The Committee)’s birthday, we form ourselves into loose collectives based on some vague theme and argue amongst ourselves about who is the best horse or who is the best at running blindfolded and then send forth our gladiators into the arena.
This year was the fourth edition of the games and only the second which I had been able to attend in full. I formed a team of the best athletes I know and Bass who then argued for about three days as to what our team name would be. Eventually settling on “It’s my birthday” so Bass could make endless jokes when Luke read out our team name, we made our way to the arena complete with party hats and blowers.
After Bass’s blindfold fencing style – which largely resembled attempting to play cricket and then rolling on the floor – earned us a silver medal in the first event, it looked like we were on for a good day.
I didn’t compete until the Four Legged Hurdles event when me, Lisa and Natalie felt confident after literally minutes of training. Despite even giving hints to our opponents in the heat (two thirds of whom hadn’t yet reached their eleventh birthday) we mercilessly beat them with our athletic prowess.
In the final, we went up against Team Gin B who had a couple of McNeices as ringers on their side. We were less confident but after going neck and neck down the first straight we took them at the turn before getting over excited and almost losing our rhythm as we stormed home to victory to set the world record of 38.03 seconds.
We managed to hold back the tears during the medal ceremony but our joy was evident. We also learnt a valuable lesson: don’t let Bass play. This was reinforced when during the Piggyback Equestrianism event he did 5 of the set moves rather than the three which he was supposed to do. He’s a loose cannon.
I had considered not entering any more events to maintain a 100% winning record but I felt I owed it to the team to try to win more for us. Unfortunately it was not to be. In the Blindfold Biathalon underhanded instructions shouted from a rival team member (don’t worry, Katie, I won’t tell anyone it was you) lost us valuable seconds and in the Water Balloon Shot Put, it turns out that I don’t know my own strength and I crushed a balloon in my bare hands before launching it down the course.
Despite the fact that our team finished last overall, we were the smallest nation entering and I feel we can be proud of our performance. We now have two years to get in training for the next one to build on what we have accomplished.