Are the Patriot Games Great? No. Are They Fun to Watch?

How to describe President Trump’s Freedom 250 Patriot Games? The contest, which took place earlier this week, brought students ages 14 to 17 together from across America to answer the question: What if your high-school gym teacher walked headfirst into a pole and was then asked to throw an Olympics with a budget of exactly $6 and three weeks’ notice? Trump boasted when announcing the games that “there will be no men playing in women’s sports,” but after watching almost all of the Patriot Games , I’ve realized he meant that nobody, regardless of gender, would be playing anything recognizable as a sport.

When you turn on ESPN’s coverage of the Patriot Games, you see a camera pan slowly over several small American flags stuck into ill-tended grass, while a tune reminiscent of (but legally distinct from) the Olympics theme plays.

Welcome to SPIRE Academy, in Geneva, Ohio, where 120 competitors, one boy and one girl from each of the 50 states and … some territories, gathered for the Patriot Games.

Are these the best high-school athletes the United States has to offer? In a word, no.

Well, is the person representing Massachusetts at least from the state of Massachusetts ? Also no ! Well, does this field of competitors at least look like America? Not the America I remember! But Stephen Miller has been busy.

Then what is this? It’s a Trump-produced spectacle, of course! Who chose these contestants? What are they doing at SPIRE Academy, in Geneva, Ohio? And more important, what are these events ? The kids are not the reason that at the end of three days, I feel almost punished for trying to take the Games seriously.

I will say that at least the announcers seem to be equally bewildered by what they’re witnessing.

Over the course of the games, I notice that their confident proclamations about what is in store for the contestants keep changing from event to event and day to day.

Will Victory Hoops (Pop-A-Shot arcade basketball) feature the top-eight or the top-16 contenders? No one seems to know! (It ultimately features the top 16, despite numerous confident announcements and graphics to the contrary.) If you tuned in only to the finale—sorry, the “Freedom Finale”; every aspect of these games has patriotic branding—you might be forgiven for assuming that the Patriot Games leading up to this point had operated on any kind of recognizable human logic.

The finale features four contestants competing on an American Ninja Warrior –style course, and the other 116 competitors lined up behind them in patriotic jerseys.

They enter the arena to stirring music and dramatic lighting while sparklers blaze.

It looks as though things have been running in a professional manner.