My favorite thing about the ongoing 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou is the sheer number of events. There are 42 sports, and quite a few of them are curious, to say the least.

For example, not only are there competitions for chess – standard AND rapid for men and women – but medals are also up for grabs for two other board games, Xiangqi and Weiqi. As Robert Jaworski would say, kung ayaw niyong masaktan…

You’re probably aware that we already won two bronze medals in dancesport, but did you know that there are a whopping ten gold medals up for grabs in these competitions? TEN!!!

Then there’s Kabaddi, which Wikipedia describes as a “team contact sport” that is a “form of recreational combat training.” Holy shit, that sounds awesome!

Wikipedia continues: “Two teams occupy opposite halves of a field and take turns sending a ‘raider’ into the other half, in order to win points by tagging or wrestling members of the opposing team; the raider then tries to return to his own half, holding his breath and chanting ‘kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi’ during the whole raid.”

Wait, what the fuck? Now that’s not awesome at all. It actually sounds like a weird-ass version of agawan-base, doesn’t it? C’mon, look at the picture and tell me that’s not agawan-base.

But since the organizing committee of the games seems so eager to add competitions to its list, our sports leaders ought to start thinking about what new sports could debut in later editions of the Asiad. To help out our esteemed sports leaders, I racked my brain trying to find the next big Asian Games sport, so our athletes could start training early.

Only one answer came to mind: Quidditch. To be more accurate, Quidditch for Muggles.

Oh, you might think that I’m joking, or that I’m only doing this to blatantly find a way to write about Harry Potter in my blog now that the penultimate movie in the franchise is out. You’d be right, by the way. For the most part.

Quidditch is all too real. More than 60 college and high school teams in the United States participated in the Quidditch World Cup in New York City last month. Yup, actual people running around in capes and brooms.



But that’s not the craziest part. As NBC’s Out of Bounds blog points out:

Quidditchers are trying to get their ‘sport’ officially sanctioned by the NCAA. Yes, an activity based from a children’s series about a magical castle world that involves holding a broom between your legs as you wear capes is trying to gain NCAA status.

Yup, and they’re only looking at the NCAA as a stepping stone for bigger things:

Valerie Fischman, who plays Quidditch at the University of Maryland, would like to see it go much further. She’s been finding out what needs to be done to get the sport NCAA status. That, she says, could “be a stepping stone” to becoming an Olympic sport.

Well… the Asian Games organizers did approve Kabaddi. I say we should take advantage of this. We already have a built-in edge: Potter fans in China are probably too confused to start their own Quidditch league, given that tons of fake Harry Potter books not written by J.K. Rowling (i.e. “Harry Potter and the Leopard Walk-Up-To Dragon”) have flooded their bookshelves, while Iranian filmmakers have identified the series as Zionist propaganda. Those are two strong contenders out of our way for a medal.