Everything You Need To Stage Your Own Backyard Olympic Games

Everything You Need To Stage Your Own Backyard Olympic Games


Every few years the Olympic games brings the world together to watch the planet’s finest athletes compete for the gold medal — assuming you’ve got the money to travel the globe and can afford the ridiculous markups charged by restaurants and hotels in the host city. Not to mention trying to get tickets to the best events without selling your soul.

So screw the official Olympics. Who wants to spend all that money just to watch someone else compete for praise and adoration when we’ve got everything you need to stage your own Olympic games at home? Just make sure to record everything and only show it to your friends and family on a time delay so it feels just like the real thing.


Handheld Fireworks Light Show Projector

What are the Olympics without all the pomp and circumstance of an over-produced elaborate opening ceremony? Before the events get under way you can impress your visiting neighbours and other local dignitaries with a faux fireworks show courtesy of this handheld projector.

There are eight different firework effects to choose from, complete with mortar launching and explosive sound effects. And without the parade of nations, your private ceremonies should be over well before midnight. $40


iPong Pro Table Tennis Trainer

Table Tennis is one of the more accessible Olympic sports, but if you want to know what it’s like to actually compete with an Olympic-calibre ping-ponger, this automated trainer will keep you on your toes.

It’s like an automatic tennis ball machine, except that it delivers a non-stop barrage of ping-pong balls testing your ability to return a variety of shots. And by non-stop, we actually mean it has a capacity of around 110 balls which can be blasted in your direction at a rate of up to 70 per minute. $US200


Nerf Action Blasters Big Bad Bow

Archery is a sport of patience, concentration, and long pointy arrows piercing targets from afar — something that most homes don’t have the room, or forgiving neighbours, to allow. So when a real projectile weapon is too dangerous, there’s always a Nerf alternative that comes to fun’s rescue.

The Action Blasters Big Bad Bow fires foam arrows that won’t even pierce a piece of paper. So it’s safe for use indoors or out. But that doesn’t mean it requires any less skill to hit the target. Quite the contrary, given the lightweight nature of the projectile it can be thrown off course by even the slightest breeze. $US20


Inflatable Boxing Gloves and Helmets

Doubling as a handy way to resolve quarrels or complaints between neighbours when your makeshift games are over, these inflatable boxing gloves and helmets let amateur pugilists duke it out for glory, respect, or resolutions over property line debates.

They’re virtually guaranteed not to cause brain damage, although, even receiving a beating with a pair of these is bound to leave some egos bruised. $US28


RealRyder ABF8 Stationary Bike

There’s a good chance your city isn’t going to approve your request for shutting down various streets and highways just to stage an epic bike race. So your best alternative is to go the stationary bike route in a long-term endurance last-person-riding kind of event.

And RealRyder’s ABF8 is the perfect choice for such an event since it adds a whole other layer of realism to the stationary bike experience — allowing riders to lean back and forth which works out their arm and back muscles in addition to their legs. Just park a row of these in front of some projected driving footage, and you’ve got yourself a bonafide race to a gold medal. $US2,000


Cadbury Chocolate Gold Medals

Even though they’re not actually made from solid gold, awarding every victor in your local Olympics a shiny medal could be an expensive end to your games, and its budget. Besides, who wants that heavy weight hanging around their neck when Cadbury is selling these Olympic-themed chocolate gold medals as a delicious alternative?

And after training and eating healthy for years before the games start, there can’t be a greater motivator to run faster, jump higher, and shoot straighter than a hunk of Cadbury’s chocolate at the finish line. In fact, shouldn’t everything in the Olympics — from the torches to Discus discs — be made of chocolate? Most definitely yes.$US1.50

Lead image by Diego Barbieri/Shutterstock


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.