Before you say no, you have to get past the enthusiasm of the organizers of this weekend's International Hide-and-Seek Championship, held in the abandoned northern Italian town of Consonno, where 64 teams competed. They're sure the Olympics is in their future.
The idea of hide-and-seek as an organized tournament started seven years ago as a birthday party stunt, when party-goers wondered why there was no official event. Since the first one, it's grown every year, organized by the Bergamo magazine CTRL and local authorities. This year, teams came from as far away as Minnesota.
This year, with 320 players on 64 teams signed up, it was time to move out of the crowded city and into a town once slated to become the 'Las Vegas of Lombardy' until a 1960s landslide made most of it uninhabitable.
The 'playing field' is divided into five segments; a member of each team must hide in each one. After a countdown, the 'seekers,' members of last year's winning teams, begin to hunt down the hiding players, who in turn must try to sneak back to the base area without getting caught.
After the Saturday free-for-all, a second match on Sunday between the two best teams settled the championship. The winning team was Sneaky Frenchy from Marseille, below.
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