All right. Thought pretty hard on it, looked at some parallels in the real world, searched the forums. Still coming up a little dry.

Coming up relatively soon, my players are going to be entered into an international SWAT tournament in Germany. (Planning to set the whole thing in one of the more restrained areas of Berlin.) I've got some pretty solid ideas in regards to what they'd have to do, but I'm not entirely sure how to make it something more interesting than a bunch of disjointed skill tests and short combat encounters. Have any of you ever done such a thing before? How did you make it fun? Should I just let the tournament take a background role and focus on the secondary plot point. Would Germany have any other interesting things to offer in this situation?

Ever see The Running Man?

You want them to tell terrible puns while killing people in funny costumes?

Unequivocally yes.

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) he was suggesting live criminal opposition. And bad puns.

You could have some dastardly organization using the SWAT tournament as a cover for more nefarious dealings- recruiting a kill team or getting a team of runners (who would of course be the PCs' primary competition) close to some target that they are going to do a run on or something like that.