Grateful Shred: Meet The 2024 Air Guitar World Champion

Allow me to introduce you to the 2024 Air Guitar World Champion--Zachary "Ichabod Fame" Knowles. It's about time someone with that last name did something.

Ichabod Fame went against some tough competition in the 2024 Air Guitar World Championships in Finland, including "Shred Lasso" and "Guitarantula." However, the Canadian hit the right notes and came out on top.

There's something about the air guitar that is timelessly hilarious. A good air guitar performance? Funny. A terrible air guitar performance? Still funny! It's one of those hobbies and skills that anyone can enjoy even if they're terrible at it--much like golf. Did you know there's actually an Air Guitar World Championship? This year was the 27th one!

It went down in Oulu, Finland which is roughly 335 miles north of Helsinki. I didn't know you could go north of Helsinki! It's probably a cold place but the heat of the air guitars kept everyone warm. In the end, Knowles stood above the competition as the proud champion, per ABC News. In order to win, he had to get past the 2023 Air Guitar World Champion Nanami "Seven Seas" Nagura from Japan (a 3-time winner) and the 2022 champion Kirill "Guitarantula" Blumenkrants from France. Both of them finished in 2nd and 3rd place this year, per ABC News.

I love how they all have awesome nicknames. So, how does it all go down? According to ABC News, competitors are judged on their performance of two songs in two separate rounds that each last 60 seconds. They've got to have passion, and they are welcome to bring a real pick with them or do a finger-picking style if they choose. They are even allowed props and costumes but cannot have backup bands or real instruments with them.

Contestants come from all over the world to compete. According to ABC News, the jury judges the performances based on "originality, ability to be taken over by the music, stage presence, technical merit, artistic impression, and airness." They're then awarded points on a 4.0 to 6.0 scale. Since breakdancing will no longer be an Olympic Sport, maybe Raygun can try her hand at the Air Guitar? You can check out Ichabod Fame's winning performance below.

The Summer Olympics will take place in Paris, France this Summer! Unfortunately, there's not much to look forward to this year. There aren't many well-known athletes competing in the games this year. Ratings aren't expected to be great this time around. However, there is a way to bring a huge amount of viewers to the TV to watch the games. It will just require some changes to the games. Here are 5 extreme Red Bull sports that should be in the Olympics!

These extreme sports will likely not be in the games any time soon. However, if they want good ratings they should definitely add these sports to the lineup.

The Paris games kick off Friday, July 26th and it will conclude on August 11th. At the 2024 Paris Games, there will be swimming, archery, rhythm gymnastics, tennis, diving, wrestling, and more. Sound exciting? Yeah, didn't think so. However, if they added some extreme sports, things would probably be more interesting! Honestly, right now the thing I'm looking forward to seeing the most are cool shots of Paris. It's a beautiful city. The competition? Not very exciting this time around.

Red Bull Sports have been making waves for a while now. They've done some very extreme stuff that has gone viral. Some of the things they've done have never been attempted before, and probably never will be again. That's the kind of activity I want to see at the games! I can watch people swim in any public pool at any time during the summer months. These extreme sports are much harder to find.

Seriously, they should consider doing this. It's not like they'd struggle to find athletes to compete in the games. There are people doing daring stunts and participating in extreme sports in every country in the world, I imagine. Additionally, people love watching this kind of stuff! It's time to update the games a little. We need to bring them into the 21st century. How do we do that? Extreme sports. Here are 5 Red Bull sports I'd like to see integrated into the Olympics.

Come on! Who wouldn't want to watch this? They're going at insanely fast speeds at ridiculous heights! Not to mention someone could get seriously hurt at any minute. You wouldn't be able to look away. Well, I know I wouldn't be able to. This needs to be added at the games.

Remember this? It went viral when it happened back in 2012, turning Felix Baumgartner into a household name. Now, we've seen it's possible. Let's bring it to the games! You could see who does the most tricks, has the best landing, I'm not sure if you could do speed because of gravity, but there's a lot you can do! Sure, it might take a while, but so does the swimming! Countries have fought over the Space Race for years, now we could bring that battle back, in a slightly different way!

Diving is already a part of the Olympic Games, why not add a little extra flavor? Those gyms and pools they dive into are so boring. Can't we have them jump from a cliff? Or throw some sharks in the water, or something? They need to think about we the viewer. Then they can address the athlete's needs and safety.

This would be really cool to see! Of all the options, this might be the closest to reality. I could see it actually happening! At least, to an extent. The sounds, the view, the rush! It's all so amazing. I'd much rather watch this than two guys wrestling. Not even the cool wrestling, either!

Is it me, or do the Olympic Games take themselves a little too seriously? Let's add some lighthearted fun with this Funky Bike Race. Each team could built their own, or use something native to their home country. It was be fascinating, entertaining, and educational! Think about all the culture and things you could learn about unfamiliar countries around the world! This could end up becoming the most entertaining game in all of the Olympics. They just need to take a leap and add it to the lineup!