Olympic Sports that need to be decertified

[E. Blackadder]

I submit that it's not the nations -- although Russia and South Korea do need to develop the dignity that would come from saying "No, I didn't win this medal. I spit on this medal. The other guy won, and everyone but the judges knows it." Much in the same way that New England should have said that in the quarterfinals. But I digress.

Some sports are clearly rigged. One of them is "Olympic Site Selection" as Salt Lake 2002 and Peking 2008 demonstrate. But within the games, there are sports that are not... sports.

What is your list of "sports" that need to be shown the door? Since I started the thread, I get the easy ones: Ice Skating; Ice Dancing; Boxing; Synchronized Swimming; All sports involving Ski Jumping. (Can you say, "The agony of defeat?")

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: E. Blackadder on 2002-02-21 23:59 ]</font>

[PK]

I don't understand your point about Boxing and Ski Jumping.

I'd be with you if you said, "Judging the style of ski jumping.", but see nothing wrong with measuring distance with the requirement that the jumper stay on their feet when they land.

Boxing is judged, but not in the way the dance-like events are. Seems like they already have, or could easily switch to, a count of clean hits.

By the way, it's the Olympic Games, not the Olympic Sports. What's worng with anything remotely game-like?

[Lee Mellon]

I think it's time they reinstated croquet and horseshoe pitchin' contests.

[Kid Rock]

Ski Jumping is a cool sport. Let it stay.

Emininate racewalking or include dogpaddling.

In the spirit of the Olympic Games, we should add
1. Dodge Ball
2. Tag
3. Hide-and-go-seek
4. Paintball
5. Red Rover
6. Duck-duck-goose

[urysohn]

On 2002-02-22 08:21, Kid Rock wrote:

In the spirit of the Olympic Games, we should add
4. Paintball


That would be the most-watched game out there. Just picture it - each country could enter one of their special forces units and we could have day-long single-elimination matches. To make things more interesting and realistic, only players on a team who "survive" one round could advance to the next.


As far as eliminations:
-style points on any jumping event would be number one
-ice dancing, see ya!
-pro athletes in hockey and basketball, gone!
-curling - oh wait. I've actually started to like this event. It can stay.

The Olympic Math Nerd competition should be added. Not because anyone would care, but that would have been the only shot I had at getting close to the Olympics. Unless they had a "Minesweeper" category. But I'm way past my prime on that one.

[VP]

6. Snowboarding
7. Freestyle Skiing

Isn't 2 a subset of 1, EB?

Ski jumping's fine.

[Double High C]

What about instating dwarf tossing?

[Oliver Klozov]

Does a country have to supply its own dwarfs, or would the IOC provide a standard set of dwarfs for tossing?

Would the dwarfs themselves be subject to drug testing? I suppose since smoking can stunt your growth that nicotine would be a banned substance.

[Pseudolus]

On 2002-02-22 09:26, Oliver Klozov wrote:
Does a country have to supply its own dwarfs, or would the IOC provide a standard set of dwarfs for tossing?

It would be a head-to-head competition: We toss their dwarfs, they toss ours. Possibly at each other.

[Pseudolus]

Or they could all toss annoying "Child of the Light" punk from the opening ceremonies.

[Aaron Brachowitz]

Rhythmic gymnastics -- playing with balls, hoops and ribbons; basically a dumping ground for second-tier gymnasts. And why don't the men get to play with balls and hoops?

Ballroom dancing -- don't laugh, this is a medal sport starting in 2004. I can already envision the irate press conferences about questionable judging.

Curling -- I think our team is primarily middle-aged women in the high-society set

Moguls skiing -- those judged jumps are ridiculous. Throw in aerials, too.

Any number of recently introduced sports designed primarily to give Americans more medals -- snowboarding, women's softball (as if this was an international sport), women's bobsled, women's hockey, plus the exception for NBA and NHL players

[E. Blackadder]

VP: They look like different specialties in the realm of "Ice gymnastics."

The only difference that I can see is that if one could be judged properly, it would be "Figure Skating." Oops. I said "Ice Skating" above. My fault.

[Oliver Klozov]

I think that curling deserves to be in the games. I find it quite compelling to watch on TV....there is strategy and drama in every end.

[Cho Da]

&lt;TAN&gt;
Didn't Gimli say, &quot;No one tosses a dwarf!&quot;
I burst out laughing at this during LOTR.
&lt;/TAN&gt;

[egg]

Team Sports - Don't seem to fit in the motto "Citius, Altius, Fortius". I will be sad to see Hockey go (and Water Polo, but only a few understand that sport anyway), but I think we can all agree that Basketball is a joke.

Subjectively determined sports - All forms of gymnastics (like any layperson can tell the difference between a 9.5 and a 9.7), diving (ditto), figure skating, freestyle skiing, snowboarding.

[Cho Da]

wrt Snowboarding, halfpipe has to go (the full pipe is reserved for after doping control :wink:), but Parallel Giant Slalom is fine: pure race.

[PK]

The comment on diving got me thinking about how to fix figure skating... This is a little stream of consciousness, so bear with me.

I like diving. When I watch, I always have the impression that the judging is fair in the sense that they are correctly ranking the divers. You see, the thing is, each diver does a set of dives of their own selection. Those dives have defined characteristics and degree of difficulty (DD) ratings. The judges do a good job of differentiating between divers. Watch carefully (it is easier if you go to a high school or college meet where the divers are more diverse - harder when they are all excellent) and you will find that even if you cant tell a 4.0 dive from an 8.0, you will agree that the ranking is correct.

So, what does this have to do with Figure Skating...

The solution is obviously to make Olympic figure skating more like diving. Each skater can select 10 moves to perform. A simple figure 8 on the ice gets a 1.0 DD. A Quad, triple combination gets a 3.0 DD. I am sure the ISU can correctly rank the difficulty of toe loops vs. Lutz's and so forth. The competition has no music and no artistic component, other than the inherent higher scores that will come from a clean landing vs. a stumble.

The question is, would anyone watch?

P

[Ducky]

Would it make it any more entertaining if we played some of the Summer sports on ice?

100m dash, hurdles, basketball, tennis...think about it.

[RTackle]

Pseudolus, I almost fell off my chair reading your short but pointed post - great one about the "child of the light" kid!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: RTackle on 2002-02-22 13:10 ]</font>

[Maine-iac]

Ah, PK, remember the "compulsory figures" for the individual skaters? No music, skaters had to trace exact patterns in the ice with their skates. The less deviation, the better score.

Nobody wanted to watch it, and they got rid of it.

Actually, I found it strangely compelling to watch. Very slow and painstaking.

[PK]

Yes, I remember the figures that gave the sport its name. [I have always pictured you younger than you would need to be to have seen these.]

At the Olympic level, I would not expect any of the competitors to do simple figures. (Note I am assuming that they are simple. They may actually be harder to perform than some jumps.) I do expect a competition where everyone tries to do a quad/triple/double combination would allow us to really see who is "best".

This process also allows for someone to perform several lesser choices flawlessly to out-score someone who picks really hard jumps and only does OK.

P

[Mick Fan]

I think we can all agree that Basketball is a joke.


Why is basketball a joke? Because the US wins all the time? In the 1956 or 1960 Olympics, the US won by an AVERAGE of over 40 points per game, way more than the margins with the current NBA players. Heck, the US almost LOST in 1996 to Yugoslavia or Croatia.

My point is, the US won by wide margins 40-45 years ago with collegians and nobody was clamoring for basketball to be removed or for us to send weaker teams. Should we have sent our best high school players? Or Division II players?

The world will catch up to us in basketball. In 20 years, it will be as competitive as it was in the late 70's and 80's.

[CJL]

I might actually watch skating if it followed PK's format. The "dancing" in between jumps and such is a joke. It's a little bit graceful, but not at all hard or athletic, and it's rarely in time with the music. The skaters even seem bored with it. I can see them thinking, "OK, hop around a little, catch my breath, few more seconds, now the real move."

As far as pro athletes go, there should be one set Olympic rule that applies to all sports (excuse me, <u>games</u>) and all countries. If you've ever (or w/i a reasonable timeframe) been paid to perform the game, you're ineligible for the Olympics. Or maybe everyone's eligible - I don't care which, as long as everyone follows the same rule.

Let's add bar games to the Olympics: foosball, pool, darts, NTN trivia.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: CJL on 2002-02-25 17:41 ]</font>

[Lee Mellon]

Olympic foosball - amen, I'm outta here! I got D, who's on O?

[Buffy]

how about adding Vampire staking? Competition, with cleaning up the world as a byproduct.

[Double High C]

What about Lawn Darts?

[CJL]

I seem to remember it being called Jarts - am I imagining things? And isn't it illegal now? (just say no)

Of course, 3/4 of the things I did when I was a kid are illegal now, and I'm not that old. For example, riding bike/skateboard/skates/etc. w/o helmet, sitting in back seat of car w/o seat belt on, even dodgeball's been criticized. It's the end of the world as we know it.

[Dr T Non-Fan]

Jarts have been illegal for quite some time. "Let's have our kids throw sharp objects at each other!" My mom might have been naive about teenagers in cars, but she wouldn't let us near Jarts.
Still looking for Mainway's "Bag O'Glass."

(start edited)
OTOH, I don't know if they were illegalized, as much as they were litigated out of existence.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Dr T Non-Fan on 2002-02-26 17:24 ]</font>

[Hanse]

My brother and I used to use darts and a towel with a bullseye hung on line in the yard. To make the game more interesting, the one who wasn't throwing would shake the towel in an attempt to keep the darts from sticking. The game ended when the little SOB hit me in the arm. I got even - eventually.

[Waylon]

Get rid of all team sports.
Get rid of any competition that is judged.
I would also get rid of bobsled & luge. The real competition is which country can afford the best engineers. They might as well add NASCAR to the Olympics.

[Mtl guru]

NASCAR on ice, that would be nice!

I think they should reduce the number of different distances in speed skating. They have 500, 1000 ,1500 ...

And curling is cool!

[Actuary321]

On 2002-03-06 19:21, Mtl guru wrote:
NASCAR on ice, that would be nice!

I think they should reduce the number of different distances in speed skating. They have 500, 1000 ,1500 ...

And curling is cool!

Yes, and get rid of all those distances in track. I mean really, do they need 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500, 3000, 5000, 10000...?