As the title states, what Olympic sports have other tournaments that are more prestigious than the Olympics?
Tennis, NBA.
From a quick google search, the Grand Slam tournaments are the most prestigious tennis tournaments, correct? Are the four tournaments equally prestigious?
Soccer, for sure.
And even now, probably boxing.
Alpine Skiing - the World Cup title is typically considered more important than Olympic medals.
They are different; Wimbledon is on grass, French is on clay, Australian and US are on hard courts. Clay is the most specialized surface and there is often a player who is a clay specialist. They can dominate there while not winning elsewhere. But they are all Majors and they are all prestigious.
Golf and possibly Marathon, although the latter is very likely highly debatable.
Hockey I think the Stanley Cup is more prestigious.
Ironman triathlon.
In cycling the Tour de France seems to be the most prestigious race.
Sailing. The America’s Cup is the pinnacle for match racing. Each Olympic class has a World Championship regatta that outshines the Olympics.
IMO:
Hockey.
Golf returns to the Olympics in 2016. It won’t come close to the 4 majors.
I’d argue Olympic hockey is just a tad more prestigious than the Stanley Cup.
What’s funny is that baseball had no world tournament before a few years ago and the Olympics threw it out.
Hockey is kinda apples to oranges, IMO.
Defo road cycling - road race and time trial are less important than the Spring Classics, world champs etc. The Olympics is probably top dog for track cycling in the velodrome, though, compared to annual indoor cycling events.
You would argue incorrectly then. Lord Stanley is…well, LORD Stanley.
Tennis and Wimbledon is its most prestigious, though the others are very prestigious as well.
Golf is back in the 2016 Olympics and it has the Masters tournament, which I think is pretty presitiougs.
I would argue that in basketball and hockey it is kind of like comparing apples and oranges, since the comparison is with a club competition as opposed to one between national teams. In soccer, however, the olympics isn’t even the premier international tournament. (At least that’s true for the men.)
For men’s Association Football, it is also a bit of comparing apples to oranges, or at least red apples to green apples. Olympic men’s soccer sides are each only permitted three players above the age of 23.
The women’s sides have no such restrictions. The women’s Olympic gold medal is probably only slightly less prestigious than the women’s World Cup. But, obviously, the men’s World Cup is far more prestigious than the men’s Olympic gold medal.
Field Hockey World Cup is more prestigious. Olympics was the prime tournament until the World Cup stated though.
But, while for many sports, the Olympics is still a major event despite being less prestigious than another, for sports like Association Football for men and Tennis, it’s not even a particularly big tourney.
Soccer, Golf, Tennis, Basketball, are the ones that come to mind straight away.
Yeah, Marathon is a funny one. To one way of thinking, the Boston Marathon is the most prestigious. But it’s not even a world record course-- because it’s downhill, you can’t set a recognized world record on it.
You could, but it would be a hard struggle to convince most fans of that.
I do so hope you don’t also think the World Baseball Classic is more prestigious than the World Series.