Team USA's Artistic Swimming Team Dropped An Upside Down, Underwater Moonwalk On An Unsuspecting Public

One of the best things about the Olympics is it puts a spotlight on sports that for the most part none of us ever think about once during non-election years. 

Artistic swimming is one of those sports.

The sport is just the repackaged version of synchronized swimming and while it's easy to goof on, take a look at what Team USA did this week during the Olympic competition.

The team hopped in the pool and tipped their metaphorical fedoras to the King of Pop and threw down some upside-down underwater moonwalks to the sounds of "Smooth Criminal."

Alright, no more goofing on artistic swimming…

A couple of weeks ago, I did a list of Olympic sports I thought I could be competitive in if I trained full-time for six months. I considered putting artistic swimming on that list, and boy, I'm glad I didn't because that would have made me look foolish.

Let's take the incredible coordination and body control out of the equation for a moment; can you imagine how exhausting swimming like that must be? If you tread water for an extended period it's tiring. The mere act of trying not to drown is incredibly exhausting.

Now think about trying not to drown while flipping upside down, doing spins and moonwalking.

I'm sitting at my desk right now and I feel like I may need an oxygen tank just thinking about that.

And here's an even wilder thing about that performance: that was the best artistic swimming I've ever seen in my entire life, not counting this Martin Short/Harry Shearer SNL sketch from the '80s, and so I assumed that was the gold medal-winning routine.

Nope. That was good for the silver medal, but the team from China took the gold while Spain earned the bronze medal.