Ancient Olympic Wheelbarrow Racing (ft Louise Banham)

Olympia, Greece, 776 BCE. The first Olympic Games are about to begin, the athletes are naked, and Keon's turned up with a plan to introduce wheelbarrow racing. With Louise Banham voicing the Game Master, the original Olympics are about to get some very unauthorised new events.

Keon's pitch to the ancient Greek Olympic Committee: wheelbarrow racing as an official event. The fact that wheelbarrows won't be invented for another thousand years is, in Keon's view, an opportunity rather than an obstacle. His approach involves channelling his "inner Jonathan Edwards," some ancient Greek trash talk, and a physical demonstration. He's also got the egg and spoon race in his back pocket. Whether the committee that sanctioned naked wrestling will draw the line at novelty races is the tension that drives this one.

The ancient Olympics were a sacred athletic and religious festival held every four years at Olympia in honour of Zeus. Events included the stadion sprint, wrestling, boxing, chariot racing, and the pankration — a brutal no-holds-barred combat sport where the only rules were no biting and no eye-gouging. Athletes competed naked and oiled. The idea that this crowd would reject wheelbarrow racing for being too undignified is genuinely funny, given that they already had a sport where you could grab someone's genitals.