No Olympic competition is tougher than winning the right to host the Games themselves. Four American applicants, including the Washington-Baltimore region, remain in the hunt to be the U.S. candidate for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Any edge is important, so the nation's capital must be ready to showcase the charms of official Washington and unofficial D.C. when International Olympic Committee members arrive in Salt Lake City early next month for the 2002 Winter Games.

A blue-ribbon, bipartisan commission here at Taking Liberties recommends seven special events for the 2012 games that other venues would be hard-pressed to match:

SYNCHRONIZED SPINNING Armed only with talking points, mid-level government officials will go for the coveted Clinton Prize as they take on the Washington press corps in a display of verbal gymnastics. Watch as two-briefer teams come dangerously close to disclosing useful information -- only to pirouette away at the last moment. Points will be awarded for style, form and the ability to deny the obvious with a straight face. Sponsored by C-SPAN.

THE RONALD REAGAN MEMORIAL DECATHLON In this event, judged by former speechwriter Peggy Noonan and Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), competitors will dash about the region renaming 10 landmarks -- or any other appropriate item -- after our 40th president. A bonus GOP House seat will go to the athlete who most loudly denounces Washington's interference in other people's local affairs while imposing his or her views on disenfranchised D.C. residents.

THE FIVE-MILE HIGH-HURDLE WALK-RUN Dodging SUVs so big they block out the sun and Volvo station wagons driven by behind-schedule soccer moms, athletes will make their way on foot on a five-mile course from the Ronald Reagan Kennedy Center past the Ronald Reagan Lincoln Memorial to the District's Ronald Reagan Department of Motor Vehicles office. There, in a grueling test of endurance, tenacity and other tired sports cliche[acute]s, they will jump a dizzying succession of arbitrary rules and surly clerks in an attempt to register an automobile.

PING-PONG PUNDITRY Remember when America used to lose to the old Soviet Union in basketball? Here's another sport that will benefit from the opening of the Olympics to pros. Anchored by the new dream team of Geraldo Rivera, Bill O'Reilly and Cokie Roberts, the talking heads of Team USA will hold forth, with authority, on everything from Pashtun tribal history to Pushkin, never letting their lack of expertise stand in the way.

TAXI FARE MARATHON Assuming that they can find a cab, competitors will see how accurately they can predict what they will be charged as they travel to designated points around town in D.C. In the final round, the imaginative fares requested by certain drivers may remind athletes from some of the poorer developing countries of home -- as will the lack of air conditioning.

CONGRESSIONAL VOLLEYBALL Athletes will score points in this event by demonstrating quickness, agility and the ability to say one thing and do its opposite. Examples: blasting wasteful government spending while leading congressional "fact-finding" missions to Maui and passing "stimulus packages" to reward your loyal supporters on K Street; returning to your home district and, no matter how long you've lived in the nation's capital, referring to Washington as if it were Mars; launching a presidential exploratory committee and then, after losing in the primaries and announcing that you will spend more time with your family, going back to Washington to become a lobbyist.

4 X 40-MILE SMART GROWTH RELAY By 2012, the Washington area is likely to have the population density of Calcutta, or possibly parts of New Jersey. Watch as gridlocked Washington drivers greet Olympic athletes during rush hour (6 a.m. to 9 p.m.) with enthusiastic honking, energetic hand-waving and other welcoming gestures. Tourists who rent cars in D.C. will get to participate in the always-popular "Beltway Crawl" as they attempt to get to the finish line in Baltimore -- before New Year's Day 2013.