Armchair Athletes Square Off For Bragging Rights In Grand Rapids
GRAND RAPIDS (WWJ)- If you can't qualify for next year's Olympic Games, why not take part in this? It's the second annual Meijer State Games of Michigan. Men and women of all ages will compete in 25 sports--including basketball, racquetball, volleyball, and pickleball (a cross between tennis and ping-pong).
It's a scaled-down version of "X-Games meets the Olympics" later this month in Grand Rapids. The second annual Meijer State Games of Michigan, where armchair athletes from across the state square off for friendly bragging rights.
Veteran marathoner, spokesman Greg Meyer says they can't pull off such an event without volunteers:
"If you've seen what it's about, maybe next year you'd like to jump into something, but a lot of these events are based on pure participation, the road races, the track, you can do some things, and maybe that just sets the standard for where you want to improve from, it just set the base from where you want to build from..," said Meyer.
Meyer says it's not so much about winning, it's really the act of engaging in a sport: "You'll have people coming in trying to run their best 5k on the track, they know they are not going to win but it's important to them to better what they have done previously," said Meyer.
MSU coaches Tom Izzo and Mark Dantonio will light the cauldron for the Opening Ceremonies June 24th.
Click on here to find out more about the games.
