For those who haven’t heard, quidditch is an imaginary sport that was created by author J.K. Rowling in her famous Harry Potter series, and it features teams of young wizards flying around on broomsticks, trying to throw a ball through a hoop. It’s sort of like lacrosse, but imaginary and with magic. Of course, that never stopped scores of hipsters across the world from forming upstart quidditch leagues, in which they dressed like Harry Potter characters while pretending to fly around on brooms.
Translated: They stick brooms between their legs and run around in fields.
So despite this “sport” being based on a magical game from a series of children’s books, the people who “play” it believe that now is the time for the Olympics to take them seriously.
“Most people who play are nerds but we have a lot of jocks or athletes playing this sport as well, some of whom have never even read the Harry Potter books,” Benepe, dressed in a three-piece suit and top hat, told Reuters.
“We thought it would be a great time to piggy-back off the Olympics, being held in the home country of Harry Potter, and show people this is an exciting sport. There are a lot more ridiculous sports in the Olympics than quidditch.” (Via Reuters)
To be fair, I really do respect what the people who are behind quidditch are trying to do with their mission statement of being “dedicated to promoting the sport of quidditch and inspiring young people to lead physically active and socially engaged lives”. That’s honorable, because God knows our fat little piggy kids could use the exercise, lest they end up on Skinny Gossip’s sh*t list.
But to say there are more ridiculous sports in the Olympics? Name them. Because I don’t mean to be a dick, but if your selling point is that quidditch is whimsical and fun while physically demanding – like rugby with knock-knock jokes – you shouldn’t be crapping all over a bunch of world class athletes who have been training their whole lives to compete in these time-honored sports. Not cool, Muggles.
After the jump, the quidditch nerds state their Olympic case.
(Hat tip to Robopanda.)
