You know, deer didn’t choose to evolve into anything.
If I’m a cannibal, is it your fault you get eaten because you chose to evolve into a human? Can human catchin’ be considered a sport (albeit not legally sanctioned :))
You still haven’t answered why hunting is any more a sport than me poking every person I see who happens to be in fencing garb and holding a foil. It’s not like they appeared for the sole purpose of being poked. Sure, when they put on the jacket and mask and picked up the weapon, they expected to get hit… * but by a person that they were actively engaged in a bout with. *
Sure I’m anthropomorphizing a deer, but at least I’m not saying that the deer got what was coming to him simply for being a deer. If we shoot carnivores/omnivores with no/almost no natural predators, is it still a sport? Bears never “chose” to evolve into something that got killed by other animals…
No no no no no – if they give out medals for it in the Olympics, it’s a sport, but if they don’t give out medals for it in the Olympics, it may or may not be a sport.
Except for curling, rhythmic gymnastics and anything with the word “synchronized” in its title, of course.
That’s the other thing: while I do consider equestrian to be a sport (it is very physically demanding for the rider), I don’t think it belongs in the Olympics. They’re about testing * human * ability, not human & horse.
I don’t have any trouble defining track and field, or even diving, as sports but I do have a problem calling them games.
I know there’s a bunch of definitions of games and I suspect the one the olympics committee is using is the mathematical one “A set of rules completely specifying a competition”. I don’t like that one. As a matter of fact, looking through the dictionary I don’t like any of them. Maybe I’m way off base here, somebody help me out. Like some of the definitions of sport given above, I think a game should have an objective scoring system. I can’t think of a way to eliminate track and field without eliminating chess, but I think chess is a game while high jump is not.
