The Olympics kick off today, a time when Canadians join together and show national pride in their new found appreciation of synchronized trampolining. But the lesser known “political olympics” also kick off this week – here’s a run-down of some of the key events:

Gymnastics: The Tories were the early favourites in this event, but have decided to boycott all judged sports, claiming a judging conspiracy against them.

The Marathon: The marathon commemorates the run of the soldier Pheidippides from a battlefield at the site of the town of Marathon, Greece, to Athens in 490 B.C. Fun fact – Phheidippides served in the same military unit as John McCain.

Softball: The media lob questions at Barack Obama.

Synchronized Messaging: The Liberal Party tries to keep all their MPs on message. [note: this is actually a “special political olympics” event]

Pole Vault: How high can the federal government’s polling budget go? Michael Fortier comes in as the favourite, however this event is set to air at 3 a.m. so it may be difficult for viewers to catch it.

High Dive: Watch over hyped politicians do a belly flop! This field should be wide open after the defending champion, Andre Boisclair, was disqualified for a failed drug test.

Shooting Events: [A Liberal riding president submitted a hilarious joke to me for this one, but it has been removed on advice from my lawyer]

Hurdles: Traditionally designed in such a way where the opposition party would put up hurdles for the Prime Minister to leap over…this year, the event will involve the official opposition threatening to put hurdles on the track.