Soccer is already an Olympic sport.
We can call it the Kumite! 
I would get rid of the whole thing and just have a world cup of track and field and aquatic events.
I would love to see a modern pentathlon. I have never seen it broadcast on the Olympics. I would like it to be it’s own event. With all the cable and satellite channels out there, I wish we sould see more obscure sports. I voted for rhythmic gymnastics and trampoline.
I’m with you. I like the Olympics precisely because it’s the only attention some sports ever get. I don’t 'need to see more basketball or tennis. Right now I’m having to deal with the fact that I won’t see any biathlon or luge for four years.
Beach Vollyball
Golf (kill it before its permanent)
Hockey
Synchronized swimming
Basketball
All good points. It was in very early modern Olympics, and I suppose it is fair to give it a chance again. I wonder what the format will be?
Here’s a couple of relatively recent ones:
Worst Olympic Sports
What sport would you cut from the Summer Olympics?
The proposal is the top 15 in the world golf rankings qualify regardless of country, then the next 45 only for countries that don’t already have two representatives. 72 hole stroke play.
If today were the cutoff date, teams would look like this:
USA: Tiger Woods, Phil Mickleson, Zach Johnson, Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar, Jordan Speith, Bubba Watson
Australia: Jason Day, Adam Scott
Great Britian: Rory McElroy, Justin Rose, Graeme McDowell
Sweden: Henrick Stenson, Jonas Blixt
Spain: Sergio Garcia, Gonzalo Fdez-Castano
South Africa: Charl Schwartzel, Ernie Els
Japan: Hideki Matsuyama, Koumei Oda
France: Victor Dubuisson, Romain Wattel
Denmark: Thomas Bjorn, Morten Orem Madsen
Canada, Grame Delaet, David Hearn
I’ll stop there, but other countries involved would be Italy, Germany, Thailand, Finland, Denmark, Zimbabwe, Argentina, South Korea, Ireland, India, China, Fiji, Bangladesh, Portugal, and a couple more.
Golf. I’d forgotten that was going to be included. I find golf quite boring, so I will vote for removing it again.
But it’s nowhere near as bad as equestrian …
Check any high-number sports channels your cable or satellite provider might have. Universal Sports Network has luge and other sliding sports, and may well have biathalon.
And I caught several Champion’s League Handball matches on BeIn Sports last year.
I’m really mellow about this whole sports thing these days, so only four really stick out right now:
Racewalking - I don’t mind the “whispering the loudest” aspect. Lots of sports impose artificial limits on the competitors (soccer, greco-roman wrestling, fencing, hockey, heck, every sport martial art ever). My problem is that it’s athletes making endlessly repetitive unnatural motions, with a scowling official constantly hovering by just itching to whip up a red circle the size of a freaking cantaloupe every time the walker makes the tiniest slipup. And this goes on for hours. Where the bloody hell does the concept of “fun” enter into this?
Soccer - I’ll make one concession: If the Olympics ever were to become an all-amateur spectacle again, or at least make this particular event all-amateur, it’d have its place. Otherwise, meaningless poor man’s World Cup.
Tennis - Same deal as soccer. Actually even worse because nobody even tries to pretend that this is a big deal.
Solo synchronized swimming - This…just…what the…all right, ha ha ha, very funny, good one, thanks for livening up our day blah blah etc. Now, as with that skiing in a straight line thing, let’s just acknowledge how phenomenally stupid an idea this was and allow it to die a quiet death, okay?
And since it’s come up, if I may get on my soapbox again about judged events: They have a long history, they’re insanely popular, and they’ve provided some truly breathtaking Olympic moments. These spectacles have earned their place in the Olympics. Notice I said “spectacles” and not “sports”, because they’re not sports, and, as such, should not get the same freaking awards as the actual sports. Bracelets, wreaths, necklaces, armbands, belts, whatever, fine, just something that’s not medals and, more importantly, does not get counted with the medals. Keep 'em, just put 'em in their proper place, that’s all.
Count me in as another who likes all the weird and/or obscure sports. I wish the networks would devote more time to them. They’re interesting to watch, they tend to have interesting sub-cultures that grow up around them and there’s less breathless hype surrounding them.
Plus they kind of feel a little more in the spirit of the modern Olympics as it was originally conceived, in that the people are generally actual amateurs. Since no ones going to get a huge endorsement deal for being the gold medal pentathlete or speed-walker, the people who compete are generally really doing this stuff as a rather intense hobby.
And I just like it when people give their all for stuff that no one outside their little sub-culture cares about. Pretty much the only time I watch ESPN every year is the Nathan Hotdog eating contest.
Tennis is a big deal to those athletes.
I think the olympics should be the most important event (by far) in a sport, I don’t think any olympics trump Wimbledon (or any other slam)… unless it is one of the guys that had won each slam a bunch of times already. A player that hasn’t won anything yet, will prefer a slam.
This is a similar reason as to why football doesn’t belong there (and neither do golf and rugby).
I wouldn’t eliminate a single event. The more the merrier. Part of what makes the Olympics fun for me is seeing sports I don’t usually get a chance to see. Watching ABC’s Wide World of Sports back in the 80s (I miss it) was about the only time I had even a remote chance of seeing the oddball sports outside of the Summer Games or Winter Games. If I absolutely had to pick one, equestrian seems like an odd one out, but I say keep it, because where else would I see equestrian?
I wouldn’t be so sure in the case of rugby (though obviously we will see), as they’re not admitting rugby - they’re admitting rugby 7s. There is actually very little overlap in the players competing at the international level in the two sports, as they require different skill sets. So whilst players would probably prefer to win the 15 a side World Cup over the 7s Gold Medal, practically that is not going to be a consideration - very few, if any, of the players who participate on the 7s circuit will ever get a chance to compete for a 15 a side World Championship.
The 7s World Cup is itself not that big of a deal. It’s more a big deal to come top of the season long competition that allocates points for results at each of the 10-12 World 7s competitions. I still think that winning the Gold Medal will trump all of this in Rugby 7s though, especially if a team like Fiji or Samoa win it - they win plenty of 7s tournaments but they don’t win many Gold Medals in the Olympics, so it will be a huge deal for them. Hell, I suspect it would be a pretty damn big deal if any of the bigger countries like NZ, Australia, South Africa, France, Britain or Ireland won it.
I can’t speak to golf. I think the principle of what you’re saying is sound though. I just don’t think it will apply in 7s.
Keep in mind that men’s soccer is limited - only three professional players over the age of 22 per team. Also remember that the finals of the European Championships are held at pretty much the same time, although only something like eight countries are remaining in that tournament at that point.
It’s a big deal if somebody still has a chance at a Grand Slam - Steffi Graf won all four majors and the Olympics in 1988. Otherwise, you’re right, especially when the men are concerned because they only play best of 3 sets (except maybe in the final).
“That skiing in a straight line thing” - you mean speed skiing (i.e. just ski down a steep hill, and whoever is going the fastest is the winner), which was a demonstration sport in 1992?
I am assuming this is because it’s probably a lot easier to fit a 7-a-side tournament into the 19 days you normally get for the summer Olympics (if you include two days before the opening ceremony like they did for soccer in 2012).
The 2011 Rugby World Cup had 4-6 days between matches in the group stage, and 6-8 days between matches in the elimination rounds; maybe you can safely fit five matches into the time period of an Olympics (four 3-team groups, with only the winners advancing), but the two teams in the final would be struggling, since the number of days from one match to the next would be 4-4-5-5.
Well, quite. 15 a side in the Olympics would result in the final being a war of attrition between two sides absolutely on their knees. There is a reason that the RWC takes so long to play out - and will likely take longer in future; the smaller nations tended to be the ones who got kippered with 4 day turnarounds last time and, rightly, complained that their chances of causing an upset were being hampered. 7s is done in 3 days max. If you’ve any sense, you play it in the Olympic Stadium before the Athletics starts so you don’t need to build a dedicated stadium for it, especially if your Brazil and have no real heritage in Rugby at all. All told, I think it will probably be a reasonable success - and the pinnacle of that particular form of the game.
My main issue with expanded Olympics sports is that the classic Olympics sports get less TV coverage. For Winter Olympics, I like to watch the skiing, ski jumping and speed skating events. For Summer Olympics, the track, swimming and diving events. Eliminate the equistrian, golf, volleyball, basketball, and stop expanding snowboarding, freestyle, figure skating, bobsled and other events that cut into the skiing coverage. There’s too much freestyle in the Winter Olympics which would be like having skateboarding in the Summer Olympics.
Soccer is appropriate since it’s the world’s most popular summer team sport. Curling is okay since it was televised on a separate channel, but I’d like the commentators to explain the basic rules and strategy at least once or twice.