And now for something completely different (snaps for you if you got that reference, by the way): the Baby Olympics.
Yes, there are Olympic Games for babies. No, we’re not kidding.
According to Top End Sports, the original Bahrain Baby Games event was organized by the Bahrain Olympic Committee in 2018 and were repeated in 2019 (with more than 1,000 children participating). None were held in 2020, 2021 and 2022 due to the pandemic – but Bahrain made 2023 the year of the comeback for the Baby Games, with an event held at the end of May.
The event, in which children aged three to five years can compete in six sports (and where younger children can have crawling races), is touted as a way of enhancing the development of physical and motor skills, and to instill the values and principles of sports at a young age.
Top End notes, “The competitors in the Bahrain Baby Games were aged between two and five years old, and competed in five different sports: athletics, gymnastics, football, and basketball. There were also demonstration events, a below-12 months crawling contest and a below-15 months kids walkers competition. The first Baby Games … included about 1,200 kids from 66 nurseries and kindergartens.”
Among the medal sports hosted at the Baby Games were the following, for three-, four- and five-year-olds:
- Football/Soccer – includes a free kick competition
- Basketball – children try to get free throws into the basket
- Track & Field – Sprints, hurdles and a relay
- Gymnastics – Inside The Games notes this includes “free body expression”
- Freestyle Swimming
- Weightlifting (“with the emphasis on technique”
Opening and closing ceremonies were also held.
It’s not the first time babies have engaged in competition, however. Top End Sports adds, “From 1946 until 1955 the National Institute of Diaper Services in the USA held annual baby crawling races (called 'diaper derbies'). Such races are having a resurgence. Baby races are popular in Japan. The most well-known race is the annual baby crawling competition in Lithuania, held to celebrate International Children's Day.”
Here's something else to know, courtesy of Top End: More than 600 Japanese babies set a Guinness World Record in November 2015 by taking part in the world's largest baby crawling competition. The event involved 601 babies aged between six and 16 months and took place in a shopping center in the city of Yokohama just outside Tokyo.
The concept of babies competing in sports has caught on commercially. In 2018, the Olympics Channel upped the entertainment value of the Games in PyeongChang with a video of babies competing in curling and other sports. And as Scroll.In noted, it was a massive hit:
“The Baby Games, where toddlers are seen taking part in some Olympic disciplines, first hit the internet in April 2017 when the Olympic channel uploaded a video of babies competing in the Summer Olympics. The video went viral with over 6.5 million views.
Now, there is a version for the Winter Games as well, with the snow-suited children looking even cuter. The video, which already has over 179K views on YouTube, shows babies in the kits of different countries taking part in various sports at Winter Olympics.
The three-minute long video promises “shocking moments, heartbreak and triumph” with a stand-off in curling, a skiing mishap and glory and even a ‘Cool Runnings’ nod. Even the figure skating judges are kids, a perfect 10 for concept.”
Whether Baby Games will become any kind of a sanctioned sport in the USA is doubtful (at best) but the concept of getting kids interested in activity early is a solid one.
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