In my quest to become the Bill Veeck of the Olympics, I would propose the following:
DROP: Marathon
ADD: Dwarf Bowling.
“5.1.3 Player’s uniforms must be clean.”
So much for one of my favorite fantasies.
Drop: Synchronized diving. What the hell? It’s like they’re taking everything and making a synchronized version of it.
But if they’re gonna have all those BS synchronized sports, I want them to
Add: Synchronized figure skating. It would be just like regular one-person figure skating, but with TWO little girlies twirling around the rink. But if one of the skaters wipes out and falls on her ass, the other one will have to fall on her ass too–gotta keep it synchronized!
Add: Ultimate frisbee
Drop: athletics - like tennis, there are already perfectly good international competitions in existence. do i need a wink smily?
Who said no beach volleyball - wash your mouth out.
Dump the ribbon dance.
Adopt vine swinging. Over a 'gator infested lake.
Drop: rhythmic gymnastics & syncronized swimming. I’m a girl and I don’t even like those. Well, sometimes the rhythmic gymnastics is pretty to watch, but I don’t seek it out, get bored fast, and don’t think it should be an Olympic sport.
Add: Caber tossing!!! Men & Women.
I don’t have opinions about what to drop except for NBC.
But to add.
Well the first one has some subjective judging but we should add
IRON CHEF!!!
Also add
Poker
Paintball
Dodgball
Some sort of contest to see which athlete who can bed the most athletes at the olympic village. Only atheletes from other countries would count.
I am totally with you and Tapioca Dextrin on this one. Billiards in general belong in the Olympics.
I’ve got it all planned out. Here are the disciplines (both men’s and women’s):
Pocket Billiards
Straight Pool (14.1 Continuous, 500 pts)
8-Ball
9-Ball
One Pocket
Snooker
Trick shooting (non-medaling exhibition)
Carom Billiards
Straight Billiards (aka Straight-rail)
One-Cushion
Three Cushion
Balkline
Artistic billiards (non-medaling exhibition)
The governing body would be the World Confederation of Billiard Sports (Basel, Switzerland).
I think we can all get behind that suggestion. The problem is, whoever replaces them would probably do just as bad a job.
ADD
Diving To The X-TREME!!!
It’s like regular diving, except it’s not about style but how high you can jump from. You build a 100 story platform, and put a platform every story to jump off, and after everyone jumps, you all move up one until there is a winner. Tie-breakers will be decided by a race between the remaining athletes up the 100 stories ladder or stairs, and the first one to reach the water, takes it all.
Drop: Soccer.
I love soccer, but the Olympic tournament is a second-class international tournament. If a sport is played in the Olympics, it should be one of the most
prestigious competitions for the sport on an international level. (This rule would also throw out tennis, and probably explains the absence of rugby, cricket, and golf.)
On some of the other suggestions, yes to synchro anything, and the lamer
gymanastics for gymnasts who couldn’t hack real gymnastics. I actually like equestrian, but I’d drop the incomprehensible and boring dressage section.
Add: Racquetball/Squash.
Looking over the list of Olympic recognized foundations – let me take a minute to marvel about the existence of the “Tug of War International Federation” 
– none of these sports scream a need for Olympic recognition. (Life saving!?! Isn’t that its own reward?) Though racquetball and/or squash would be kinda neat to see.
Umm, I’m guessing you’ve never really done any riding. The horse is part of the team, but if the rider doesn’t know how to make the horse do what it’s supposed to, that horse is just going to stand there and eat. Equestrian events are all about the human. A horse will NOT jump over an obstacle unless you give it very specific orders to.
I frequently ride a stallion at the barn where I board my horse. He is extremely well trained. I am just learning jumping. I thought to myself, “Well, Frisco can jump that low wall, I’ll canter him up to it and we’ll fly over, it will be so cool!” Umm, no…Guess I didn’t know what to do to make him jump, so instead, I alone go flying over the low wall and he proceeds around it to look at me like I’m a total idiot. He would have taken that low wall in spectacular style, If I had known what I was doing.
You may not like questrian events, and that’s fine, a lot of people don’t, but please don’t think the riders aren’t highly trained atheletes worthy of competing in world class events.
What I would drop: Water Polo
What I would add: Polo on horses.
Drop: synchronized swimming/diving
Add: nothing
I agree with Rhiannon , equestrian is definitely an athelete’s sport, not just the horse (don’t try it unless you have killer quads) made harder still because it requires the horse and rider be in total sync with each other…not an easy feat. Dressage I could live without, but a well executed jump is a work of art…and hard work.
Drop: Baseball. I believe that any world baseball competition that features Italy, Australia, Greece and the Netherlands but not the US is a farce. I can believe getting beaten by Japan or Cuba in the finals or semis, but getting knocked out of playing by Greece? No that is not baseball.
Add: Thunderdome. Two enter. One leaves.
How did the US get “knocked out of playing by Greece”?
Greece automatically made the tournament due to being the host country. But according to the Qualifying Rules (warning: pdf) for the Athens Olympics, two teams were selected from the American region, based on a qualifying tournament played in 2003. And according to the International Baseball Federation, Cuba won that tournament, with Canada coming second. If the US can’t beat Cuba and/or Canada, then why does it deserve to go to the Games?
I’m not sure who competed in the tournament, but it strikes me that if the United States isn’t present at Athens, then there are three possible reasons:
-
I didn’t bother to send a team to the Qualifying Tournament.
-
It sent a team, but not its best team, and got beaten.
-
It sent its best team, and got beaten.
Whichever one of those scenarios is the correct one, if the US isn’t in the Olympics then it has no-one to blame but itself.
If there’s some other possible scenario that i’m missing, i’d be happy to be educated by someone who knows the fulkl story.
The US baseball team lost to Mexico in the qualifying rounds last November. Greece automatically qualified because it is the host country.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/08/14/sports1610EDT0518.DTL
Thanks for the link.
It does appear from that story that the qualifying system leaves something to be desired, especially the fact that a single loss can end a team’s chances of making the Olympics. Still, the same rules apply to all teams, and it’s not like the US had some special handicap placed on it to prevent it from qualifying.
Drop: any team sport - I just feel that the olympics should be individuals competing, with the result being one winner, the absolute best and not a whole bunch og guys or girls.
Add: nothing
I kinda sorta agree with your point. I think team sports like football (soccer), basketball, baseball, etc shouldn’t really be part of the Olympics. Especially when so many of the competitors in these sports do it for a living. IMO, these sports really have all the worldwide recognition they need.
I like “team” sports where the scores of the individuals are totalled to give a “team score”. Like gymnastics, equestrian and wrestling.
Would you get rid of relay races?