A Day at the Gatalympics

by Aine Flynn, (2 September, 2004) in articles > features

Wellington-boot throwing competition. Cock fights. Standing with a vegetarian friend and gaping at an atrocious parade of slain moose mounted on the back of pick-up trucks. Sleeping rough in St. Mark’s Square, with nothing but a box of tic-tacs for nourishment and torn pages of a magazine for warmth. Up until the last weekend of May 2004, I was content with my repertoire of absurd experiences. Not bad, ne? I hadn’t expected to add to the list. Well, not in Japan, and certainly not whilst living in my new adopted home called Kashima.

But, as a recent importee to this fair town, locals were persistent in their attempts to explain all that Kashima has to offer. The Yutoku Shrine (the third largest in Japan), the onsen and many pachinkos for the gamblers. I’d heard mention of an olympics of some kind and immediately thought “agggggggggg!” There’s nothing like the hint of a participatory sporting event to put the fear of God into comatose muscles.

“Oh, Tatami-san, I can barely contain myself until the end of May. A sports day! And in the sweltering heat, bring it on (?)! Dehydration; sweat-saturation, (linguistic) frustration, isolation, exasperation, (shogakusei) inundation. Don’t make me go!”

It had slipped my slippery mind to inquire as to what gata meant. Gata, blah, potatoes. Lie low, they’ll forget about it.

Well, gata, I discovered, means mud. And olympics is fairly obvious: images of leaping ensembles of finely tuned muscles triple-vaulting, steeple chasing, playing chess. What in the name of shrouded Afghans has mud got to do with all this?

Let us fast-forward ourselves to the day of the spectacle. Suitable attire? Nothing you’d deem valuable or ever hope to wear again. Setting? The shores of the Ariake Sea (any beach scene works; imagine the collection ground of the excesses of a diahorea epidemic and you have the picture). Mud took the place of sand.

The list of events to be considered: surfing, 100m swim, lady’s wrestling, tug of war, cycling, Tarzan jumps. The 100m mud swim could be equated to those dreams where you’re trying desperately to run but whilst tied to a burdensome hundred pound weight. You’re going nowhere fast. Able-bodied men mounted bicycles, looking out to the mud-soaked subversive fifteen-inch wide ramp of danger they must attempt to orienteer. It’s an achievement to manage one full pedal rotation before veering into the chocolaty waters. The mud’s subliminal urge to derail contestants could neither be subdued nor defied.

Six hours later, none of the participants were recognizable. A menagerie of sea-urchin-like athletes posed for pictures under a crepuscular sun whilst waiting to be hosed down by firemen.

I’m afraid I lack the literary wherewithal to do justice to the regality of the day. I can pledge, though, that this experience will surely top the yardsticks in harebrained-ness and hilarity. I think the photos speak for themselves.