I am not a big summer olympics fan; there seem to be an awful lot of “sports” that i know nothing about. take “Rhythm Dancing”-does anybody actually watch this? How do people get into this?
Likewise "racewalking"those guys look like turkeys (with the waddling hips).
Any other obscure sports you WON’T be watching?
Lots of obscure sports I won’t be watching–because they don’t SHOW them. :mad:
Tell me about it. I’d definitely watch Judo if it was ever on.
Equestrian anything.
They turned a summertime hobby for the uber-privileged into an Olympic sport?
Fuck you!
Any “sport” that is adjudicated and not won by merit is off of my list immediately. I may as well be watching “So, you think you can Dance.”
Anyway, the only Olympic sport I can watch is hockey: the rest don’t matter. 
Ditto. Please, please, some prime time Judo this year.
I watch every minute of equestrian events that are shown. So there, Trunk! 
Actually, most of the equstrian events were competitions for cavalry horses to see which army had the best trained mounts.
StG
Same here. And show more wrestling than just a 2 minute recap of the entire competition.
They never broadcast the shooting events. Of course, they’d be boring as heck, even to those of us who participate in them, but still. The first medal to be won this year will be in shooting, and all it will get is a 5 second mention.
The sailing events are shorted as well. They should dump all coverage of stuff like hockey and basketball and show the sailing events instead.
Do you mean Rhythm Gymnastics? I always watch them - they’re gorgeous. Who doesn’t love a dance routine featuring multiple balls being tossed 50 feet into the air and then caught while doing a somersault? It’s really too bad that the American team is always so bad since the sport is unpopular here.
Actually, one of my favorite things about the Olympics is all of the obscure sports that I get to see without having to seek out the dregs of late night ESPN4. I’m really hoping that they’ll televise trampoline, Judo or Taekwondo, synchronized swimming, or at the very least the archery and equestrian events.
Then again, I’m a big curling fan (outside of the Winter Olympics too), so my taste is obviously questionable.
Hey I wasn’t kidding about hockey. In Canada, Olympic hockey is the absolute pinnacle of sporting events.
Who cares about its origins.
Try to convince me that equestrian actually selects from a pool of the worlds greatest athletes and not just those select few whose daddies were rich enough to buy little Muffy her very own jodhpurs.
Certainly not every sport is chosen from the entire pool of the worlds atheltes, but swimming can lay a better claim to having an honest athletic selection system than friggin’ dressage.
I’m sorry. . .dre-ssaahhhhhhzzzzh.
At least they’re getting rid of softball. I have no idea what channels of influence are keeping equestrian in the olympics, but it’s certainly not because of public outcry.
I don’t think swimming’s such a good example here. I’ve always thought of it as a country club sport.
I love the Olympics because of the obscure sports. Bring on the dressage and shot put! Whee! (But mostly I’ll be watching as much gymnastics as I can manage.)
I have to say that BBC coverage seems a lot better that the coverage you guys are describing.
I’m not saying they spend hours and hours on all the sports you guys have mentioned but they do cover a lot more than just the big hitters.
I’ve spent a lot of time watching shooting, weight lifting, dressage, hockey, Rhythm Gymnastics and the martial arts on BBC over the years.
No with digital they will have lots and lots more options and coverage. I’m really looking forward to this years events.
That was my point.
Entry into swimming is certainly more prohibitive than track, but if you looked at the power generated by an athlete like Michael Phelps, that guy is still off the charts for endurance athletes.
He’s not swimming in the Olympics just because his mom could afford swimming lessons.
The two sports I hope to get to see some of are Table Tennis and Badminton.
Dressage is in the Olympics because people like to watch the pretty horses. If they could find a puppy-related sport, they’d probably put that in, too.
And, yeah, swimming isn’t exactly the United Colors of Beneton, either. I don’t know that you need to own a horse to compete in equestrian, so buying some of those fantastic new Speedo suits for swimming might actually be more expensive than competing in equestrian… if you can’t get them comped.
I’m always a bit perplexed by stuff like rhythymic dancing, racewalking, synchronized swimming. I mean, I’m sure Esther Williams was a great athlete, and those girls prancing about with ribbons too, but… sport?
Are badminton and table tennis still in? (Max, get out of my head!)
For me: swimming, diving, water polo, and the boaty events. I’d like to see some fencing sometime, too.
The entire Olympics started off as a summertime hobby for the uber-privileged. That’s why the whole idea of amateurism was created.
There is of course fencing, I love to watch a guy build a good fence. Oh…What? Oh, come on, next you’ll tell me that curling has nothing to do with fixing hair or pole vaulting has nothing to do with jumping over Polish people.
Seriously, I love the Modern Pentathalon. Five obscure but what I find fascinating competitions.
What does race walking have to do with the other two? It’s a timed track and field event. It looks funky as all get-out, but it’s just as legitimate as any other race.