It's Time to Kick Out Some Olympic Sports

246 Comments

eSentrik, on 08/21/2008, -3/+71Someone please tell me what is so athletic about equestrian? Four horses were busted for doping this year in Beijing. If equestrian was athletic, wouldn't the jockey be the one doping?
smashingmonkey, on 08/22/2008, -3/+44If there's enough interest in those sports, then keep them going. Otherwise they should go. But if you want a sport eliminated because you personally don't like it or understand it, then you should get over yourself.
Topkill, on 08/22/2008, -4/+43Dugg for the suggestive thumbnail.
T440, on 08/22/2008, -1/+38Keep anything else that you would like....just please get rid of speed walking.
fhernand, on 08/22/2008, -8/+36As much as I admire Phelps for being an outstanding athlete, they should ditch a couple of swimming disciplines altogether. I mean, what is the deal with having four different styles? It's like having the 100m sprint in track and field in four different variants, sideways, backwards and hopping on one foot! Come on, 8 gold medals? Are you kidding me? The point should be getting to the other side in the fastest way possible, and that would be freestyle. If you HAVE to have other water disciplines.. invent something else, underwater javelin throw or wrestling or whatever..

/jealous rant off
N1tro, on 08/22/2008, -5/+32I think bmx is cool but for some reason i think it should have never made it into the Olympics.
eSentrik, on 08/21/2008, -0/+25Find some youtube videos of those sports and you will be surprised how much hand-eye coordination and agility is required to compete at that level. They don't exactly have a casual rally.
Rotzooi, on 08/22/2008, -2/+27Why it's important synchronized swimming should stay: http://machochip.com/2008/08/bia-and-branca-feres- ...
DismantleRepair, on 08/22/2008, -3/+25Lose the big team sports, especially the ones that already have huge international compeitions (eg World Cups for football). Ditch tennis; an Olympic gold is nothing compared to a Grand Slam.
JoeB4ever, on 08/22/2008, -2/+18SPEEDWALKING!!!
l31101, on 08/22/2008, -0/+16You obviously haven't played serious badminton and ping pong. You need to be in very good shape to play though sports. I advise you to go check out some youtube clips.
gustoheat, on 08/22/2008, -1/+16I can't understand how we have Olympic Football, Hockey etc. These are team sports with enough coverage through World Cups anyway.

Also, you can't be a professional boxer and enter the Olympics, but you can be a professional Tennis player and go to the Olympics!? How is that fair??
npowel, on 08/22/2008, -0/+14You can't get rid of that, it's the comedy part of the Olympics!
CrazedMonkey590, on 08/22/2008, -4/+17Not to mention the pure, unadulterated air of boredom circling the whole thing. I wouldn't be surprised if vultures circled that stadium thinking a few of the audience members were dead.
reisrocks, on 08/22/2008, -1/+14Well there's no reason for it not to be included.. other than it's a really small niche sport.. and that they'd all fail the drug test :D
thrashertm, on 08/22/2008, -1/+14Also, I say eliminate every sport in which performance cannot be measured in a scientifically quantifiable manner. No more ice skating or judged gymnastics. Winners should be the ones that can do something the fastest, furthest, longest, etc.
Stephiems, on 08/22/2008, -6/+18If you have never taken a real lesson on a horse, then you can't comment. Riding is a whole body workout, and I guarantee you will be more sore then you have ever been in your life if you start riding. Also, it is much more difficult then sports that take a non-living apparatus, like biking or rowing, etc because a horse is a living animal with its own thoughts. Not only do you have to be good, but you also have to be in tune with your horse. It is extremely hard working getting it to look so easy. The horse doesn't just go out there and learn the course and jump the fences himself, every step of the way the rider is guiding the horse. Not a single step is made without the rider telling the horse to take it.

Go find a Grand Prix Show Jumping event in your area once and get there early enough to walk the course, or sit close enough to be right near a fence, maybe if you see the height of these jumps, you won't consider it so boring. And if that is still too boring for you, check out the Eventing, just as high, if not higher fences that are completely solid. The people who do that are braver then most people in extreme sports, and work a lot harder at it.

Also, it is a classic sport, going back to the 1900s, there are plenty of sports that have only been in the Olympics in the recent years that don't deserve to be there.

If I had to give any other reason why it is a great event that should definitely not be taken out, it is the ONLY sport where men and women compete on equal level.

There are plenty of boring sports in the Olympics, and mostly they are boring because we don't understand them. Watching people run for 2 hours isn't my idea of fun. Lifting weights is less athletic then anything. Yes, you have to be strong, but that's it, and it is boring as hell. Just because YOU think something is boring, doesn't make it so for everyone. Judo was super confusing and horrendously boring, do I think it should be taken out of the Olympics? I don't know, I certainly don't think just because I think it is boring it should be taken out.

Oh, and they aren't called jockeys, that is for horse racing...completely different sports.
MrARPA, on 08/22/2008, -0/+11I agree it should be banned. Technically walkers are not supposed to "lift", that is they have to maintain contact with the ground at all times. However, slo-mo replays show that the walkers typically do lift (especially when they try to "walk" at higher speeds). The sport comes across as a fundamentally dishonest hybrid between running and walking.
thefirelane, on 08/22/2008, -2/+12This gets into a debate I've had before: What makes something a sport.

My chriteria is that the judging of the sport is based entirely on athletic abilities, whether they are objective (score, speed, time) or subjective (difficulty)

When you add subjective *aesthetic* criteria, it becomes NOT a sport. So figure skating, synchronized swimming, etc... are all out.

Basically, if you can lose because you lack a sense of "style" not matter how athletic you are, then it is not a sport.
joker1972, on 08/22/2008, -1/+10Have you been on a horse? A part form a pony ride.
newtontwo, on 08/22/2008, -1/+9Disclaimer: I was a swimmer and currently coach swimming

Track and Field has multiple disciplines meant to demonstrate athleticism in many variants, speed with the legs, strength with the upper body, etc...still trying to figure out the pole vault, maybe grace and balance.
Swimming's strokes are meant to do that, demonstrate different athleticism in water. All strokes use different enough techniques, freestyle (crawl) being the horse, the equivalent of just running around the track. Backstroke...well, its moving upside down and backwards...i think reverse crab walk would be the Track and Field equivalent, but I hear they dropped that in 1952 when too many competitors were drifting out of their lanes and being disqualified. There's even a rumor that a one leg one arm bum from the Vatican City won gold, silver and bronze that year after everyone else was disqualified. Breaststroke is our pole vault, more about grace and balance (and timing) than raw power and speed. Butterfly is tough, like the hurdles I guess, or maybe the triple jump. All have their purposes, all have people who excel in each.
Keep in mind what Phelps did is unprecedented, amazing in many ways, but also, in some ways, it can make the strokes appear to have some equality. I assure you they don't, the average swimmer excels in 1-2 strokes at their peak level.

I say keep all the strokes, but I also say bring back the reverse crab walk.
tomharrow, on 08/22/2008, -2/+10Having baseball in the olympics is ludicrous. It is the equivalent of having Aussie Rules – as all the Americans scratch their heads and think “No-one plays that sport?”

Precisely
steech, on 08/22/2008, -3/+9If It is scored by judges or you can smoke and/or drink beer while playing it, it is not a sport.

Sorry Tiger Woods...
fatas, on 08/22/2008, -0/+6if there wasn't synchronized swimming they would be doing porn which is far more useful to us
ldkronos, on 08/22/2008, -0/+6Which is a perfectly legal age in diving. Rules are different for each sport.
tomharrow, on 08/22/2008, -1/+7good idea! why stage a huge event like the olympics and and let the world watch. tv coverage is crazy.
Lachlan91, on 08/22/2008, -1/+7You say you _play_ football. But it's still a sport.
backbyter, on 08/22/2008, -0/+6From what little I've seen, it's because they are damn good and make little bitty splashes.
sloonark, on 08/22/2008, -0/+6Table tennis and ping-pong are different games with different rules.
DiscoUnderpants, on 08/22/2008, -0/+5Perhaps it is because the Chinese are very strong at diving and it is an enormously popular sport in China? I find it amazingly suspicious that the US is always winning the basketball(cept that time you were beaten by the Serbs).
Groovel76, on 08/22/2008, -0/+5How pissed would you be if you trained for years and years, showed amazing dedication and discipline for your sport, only to have it pulled from the Olympics?
kjk437, on 08/22/2008, -0/+5"If it were about tricks then it wouldn't belong, so skateboarding shouldn't be allowed..."

So gymnastics should be out altogether?
mickstephenson, on 08/22/2008, -2/+6Palmer your idea of what the Olympics is about has no basis in reality and no one cares what you think. the IOC has different ideas and they probably spend alot more time thinking about this than you do.
JigoroKano, on 08/22/2008, -0/+4He made the argument that those sports put aesthetics over athletics.
Additionally he argued that women and men should compete in every event.

He never said he disliked anything.
KublaiKhan, on 08/22/2008, -5/+9How about something like parkour? That would be fun to watch. No idea how it would be scored, though...is there already some standard of evaluating a parkour "performance"? Are there any sort of competitive leagues? Or is it just more of an "activity," and not so much a competitive event?

Wow, of the five sentences above, four are questions. Shows how much I know.
thrashertm, on 08/22/2008, -1/+5While we are at it, cut the distinction between women and men and let them all compete against each other.
Wangeye, on 08/22/2008, -1/+5Worst sport in the Olympics? Race walking... glorified power walking.
caribbeansun, on 08/22/2008, -0/+4What I don't like is that too many athletes are born in one country and representing another. They are made citizens so they can represent that country.Everything has become too business oriented and the true meaning has been lost.
Bots, on 08/22/2008, -2/+5has nothing to do with disliking anything. I personally think that if you can't time an event or there isn't a factual comparison of numbers of sorts get rid of it from the games. Any time where 100% of the score revolves around a judges decision renders that event moot in my eyes. Human descrepancy to judge a score makes that sport/category loose its credibility. I'm not saying that there isn't some type of raw athletic talent. Its just hard to say that "i *think* this person did a better job so they deserve a medal". They can have their own 'objectional olympic games' but I personally believe it doesn't belong in the actual Olympic games.
Vikaas, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3Well, I definitely agree about baseball and softball. I don't know why women's boxing hasn't been added. And while we're at it, I want to see break dancing become an Olympic sport.
Julz, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3Rugby, and netball should be in the Olympics.... that would be 2 instant golds for New Zealand
inactive, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3Palmer, you realise that that would throw out athletics, pretty much the entire reason the summer Olympics exists?
inactive, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3Ninjas always win the 100 meter dash. but we still lack the technology to confirm such a thing.
cleric04, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3It's called a profit line.
GravyTrain6, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3Baseball is now out....as is softball....not eligible again until 2016 I believe.
drachemorder, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3I'd include both, myself. Both are very popular sports internationally.
Arnos, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3Hmmmm.... we PLAY paintball...
jerrolds, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3Ya what the hell is up with speed walking? Lets take another sport and remove something fundamental about it - how about volleyball, but youre not allowed to jump
swimming, but you cant kick...

speed walking is the trampoline event of gymnastics - runners who are too fail to make any running team
ukblacknight, on 08/22/2008, -0/+3Or an instant gold for South Africa.
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