Jun 02, 2001, 4:20pm

For the record, I still think Michael Johnson crapped out - wimped out - pulled out of the race yesterday against the world's fastest human, Canada's own Donovan Bailey. Check ESPN's SportZone for coverage if you haven't got a clue.

But enough of that. I saw something absolutely hilarious on George Michael's Sports Machine last night. I'm still laughing over it. Words won't do it justice here, but I'll try:

Stupid Mass Human Tricks
I saw footage on TV last night that displayed just about the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life. It was a contest called Chase the Cheese. Words really can't describe it, but I'll try my best.

It seems that there is this contest in Britain somewhere. What it involves is this - a very large, steep hill, about 100 contestants, and a huge cheese ball - it's about a foot or more in diameter. What's supposed to happen is this: a judge throws the cheese so it starts rolling down this steep hill, and after 10 seconds, he barks the order starting the chase for it. The person who catches up with the cheeseball first is the winner. What does he win? The cheese of course!

Here's what really happened. The judge throws the cheese... and a few guys start chasing right away, not waiting the for order... others follow, and within about 3 seconds, everyone's after the cheese. But the hill is very steep... people start tripping up, falling, bouncing, and taking others down with them. Meanwhile, the mass of humanity has actually overtaken the cheese - the cheese ball is in the midst of the crowd, but no one can grab it because they are all falling way too fast down this steep hill.

One guy did the most amazing stunt I've ever seen. He tripped and bounced and landed on his back, bounced again way up into the air, and seemed to fly through the air for at least a dozen feet or more, bounced again on his butt, flew into the air again and hit his back again. He flew once more, and somehow, magically, landed on his feet and continued running. It was amazing... amazingly stupid.

So by this point, people are reaching the bottom, and there's no cheese... where is it? They can't find it... then finally, one guy comes rolling down the hill, and he's covered in cheese. So is another guy, and a third one. What happened is predictable - these guys hit the cheese and squashed it. It ended up being crusted on their clothes, hair and other assorted body parts. There was no cheese to be won this day. So sad, so sad.

I'll repeat what I said: this has to be the stupidest thing I've ever seen a bunch of humans do. It was a riot, and I look forward to next year's competition. What would be really cool is if I could find an .avi of it on the Net!

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