I'll take the credit for Usain Bolt's long jump plans

I would estimate that 90 percent of the content on this blog is satirical articles with no bearing no relation to reality, where one of us takes a real-life sports situation to the nth degree of ridiculousness (the other 10 percent being blowhardy opinion pieces). Of course no one is going to believe that Tom Brady is actually a zombie or that Vijay Singh has been placed in Gitmo.

So when the real world of sports collides with the fantasy world of this blog, it’s a frightening thing. And that apparently happened over the past week. I was tracking the site numbers earlier in the week (as tears streamed down my face) when I noticed a huge spike in hits for a story from the Beijing Olympics about Usain Bolt getting bored and entering and winning the gold medal in the long jump.

The premise was simple: Bolt is such a freakishly good athlete that he could win something that requires years of training without really even trying. Of course, it seemed like utter lunacy. But after seeing that thousands of people were reading this story, I decided to read some sports news (I hate sports) and discovered that, in fact, the story was freakishly prescient: Bolt is now talking about trying the long jump when his sprint career winds down.

Of course, Bolt may be about as serious in his statement as our original story was. Then again, if this means there at least a chance to Jerry Jones might install a crocodile infested moat at Cowboys Stadium (like from the old “Pitfall” game), I’m all for it. There’s no point in shying away from the power that I have when it could clearly be used for good.

So, I’m taking orders for what you want to see happen in real life. $50 gets you something simple, like your team winning a championship. Injuries to your least favorite players are priced according to the sport and the severity of the injury. I won’t do deaths. (The exception being Al Davis, although I don’t know if even my powers can get rid of him; remember, only cockroaches and Al Davis will survive a nuclear holocaust.)

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 12:04 PM 0 comments  

Bolt Breaks Long Jump World Record Just For Fun

BEIJING - Hot off of winning the Olympic 100 and 200 meter events, Jamaican Usain Bolt claimed another gold medal today by setting a new World Record in the long jump. His jump of 29' 10 inches broke Mike Powell's 27 year-old record by 5.5 inches, stunning observers, officials and jumpers who didn't even know Bolt was in the competition.

After the race, Bolt said he was hanging out in the infield watching some friends compete in other events, when he noticed a break between rounds in the long jump final.

"I thought, why not, wouldn't it be funny if I ran down there and tried it," he said. "I've never tried the long jump before, but I guess they're saying that I had a pretty good jump."

Officials were stunned by Bolt's jump, and initially refused to measure it until they realized it was near world record length. They later allowed the jump to count, despite Bolt not being entered in the competition or having qualified through the preliminaries, because "well, it's hard to deny the guy when he broke the world record."

US Track & Field officials saw their protest of the leap denied, leaving Trevell Quinley out of the medal race. Officials based their appeal on the lack of paperwork, the fact that he was still wearing his warm-up jacket and pants with sneakers, and that "it's totally unfair that he's hogging all the Gold medals."

Olympic great Carl Lewis has one of a handful of observers who praised Bolt's abilities, but questioned his showboating antics during his jump.

"I find it disrespectful that he decided to spread his arms and make noises like he was an airplane while he did his jump," Lewis said. "That denegrates all the hard work long jumpers put into their event. That, and the fact that he set a world record having never done it before."

For his part, Bolt said he was done with competitions after the 4 x 100 relay, "unless I can get into that marathon thing on Saturday. How hard could that be?"

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 4:54 PM 6 comments