There are a few contested
events in Olympic napping, with more represented at Worlds in non-Olympic
years. I’ll just describe a few: Time to REM and Extreme Napping.
Time to REM is considered
a sprint event, since the goal is to achieve REM sleep as rapidly as possible,
as measured (nowadays) by EEG tracings.
Before the advent of reliable technology for measuring brain waves
(i.e., the electrical discharge patterns of different cell populations in the
brain), the winner of the event was determined by the first person whose eyes
began to move. You can imagine how
unreliable a metric this was, and how rife cheating was. With the move toward EEGs, the sport
has experienced a renaissance in popularity and respect because the sense that
it is more fair has increased among both spectators and competitors. This year, the favorite is a competitor
from Japan, Miyuki Hasegawa, who has posted times of under 0:00:30 to REM in
national championships and regional contests.
My favorite event, though,
is Extreme Napping. In this event,
competitors are not allowed to lie horizontally, and points are awarded for
staying asleep through such distractors as uncomfortable pillows, too-small
chairs, and pets. In fact,
competitors are not even permitted to urinate for 12 hours before the start of
the event, in order that their bladders be as full as possible before settling
down. Thus far, the Holy Grail in
this event is for a competitor to actually test positive for sleep while
remaining, unsupported, in the standing position – not an easy feat by any means.
I just love watching
Napping Worlds. Take the Extreme
event, for example: Each
competitor’s sleeping apparatus is lined up on stage, preparatory to the
start. They always have those
little helpers bustling around, arranging pillows, setting up alarm clocks, and
tossing forks into the chairs of the top nappers. Then, the moment arrives when the competitors, accompanied
by coaches, shuffle out onto the platform. Each team wears its national pajamas. Teams from near the equator often show
up in nothing but a breechcloth or boxers, while teams from the Commonwealth
countries always wear flannel.
England, of course, sports the traditional smoking jacket, while
Jamaicans generally show up in crisply ironed flannel shorts and short-sleeved
pajama tops. I particularly like
to note each team’s footwear. Some
countries swear by bunny slippers, but recently the trend has been to wear
slippers in the shape of an animal indigenous to the competitor’s country. What would the Aussies pick but the
koala? And in honor of a revered
former world champion from the U.S. who now suffers from insomnia, this year’s
U.S. team will be wearing moose slippers.
Bill “Drooly” Martins hails from Portland, Maine, and the slippers will
bear poignant silent witness to the tragedy of his condition.
Each competitor is led by
the hand to his or her apparatus.
Competitors used to be allowed to take the apparatus themselves, until a
World Cup event in 1973, when the French napper was discovered curled up
backstage in a supply closet.
Apparently, in his fog of fatigue, he had mistaken this location for his
apparatus. Not surprising,
actually, since he had been an apartment building superintendent, and the
presence of cleaning chemical fumes and mildewy mops must have seemed very
familiar to him.
Eyes are rubbed as each
napper settles in. Everyone always
thinks the nappers who give the most jaw-cracking of yawns are going to run
away with the event – but I think it’s like the starting sprint in rowing. It doesn’t matter who’s ahead after the
first 500. It’s when the cat
starts kneading on your bladder that the real champions show their mettle.
The starter motions the
crowd as the timeclock ticks down to the start. All is silent.
Once the numbers flip over to 00:00:00, the crowd goes NUTS! Cheering, clapping – anything they can
do to distract the other team’s napper.
Competitors have trained all year long to acclimatize to the particular
distractors supplied by their own country’s fans and are often set off if a
particular distractor isn’t present.
Antonio Ragozzo, the 1988 Italian extreme napper, once stunned
spectators and officials alike by starting awake in the middle of the event,
crying out, “The cookware! Where
are they???” Apparently his
assistant team manager, whose role it was to clash frying pans and colanders
(they give the best resonance), had been detained at Customs for importing
merchandise over a certain dollar amount, and was required to remit an import
fee in the form of a verified cashier’s check. Tragically, just after Ragazzo awoke, the manager arrived at
the napping venue with his equipment.
A heartbreaking loss for Italian napping it was, and some would say they
haven’t recovered the strength of the program since.
On the other hand, there
are the occasional triumphs as well.
In ’64, the pets of two adjacent competitors got into a fight. The Algerian team’s tomcat, catching
the scent of the neighboring feline of the Canadian team, attacked said cat
during the event. What was so amazing
was that it was the Algerian who awoke, being so unused to not having a cat tread on his privates in the middle
of a nap. The Canadian, on the
other hand, wowed the crowd by simply snoring lightly and turning over slightly
as the two cats yowled and spit.
It just goes to show the power of training for every eventuality – cat
scratches or no cat scratches.
I hope this short
introduction to seminal events in napping history has piqued your interest in
the sport. If you think you might
enjoy it, give it a try! As with any
athletic endeavor, however, have your doctor give you a thorough checkup before
beginning any program of napping.
A previously undiagnosed case of sleep apnea has sidelined many a
napping career, though recently some extremely tough competitors have emerged
through the difficult training regimens of wearing CPAP masks during
sleep. While a crick in your neck
early on will turn most anyone off to the sport, don’t let the fear of a
sleeping injury keep you from trying this up-and-coming sport.
Happy napping!
