SO, a tournament for children, and a tournament that no one pays attention to that was formed in the wake of baseball being dropped from the Olympics, are the reasons why there should be no baseball in the Olympics? … ok …
I would cut it, but I do like watching it. We streamed it last year and were able to skip all the down time, which is highly ideal.
No. If there was no alternative, then getting baseball back in the Olympics would be a reasonable goal. But since there is an alternative, which is better than Olympic baseball usually was, or is likely to be under any realistic scenario, then getting baseball back in the Olympics is not especially important.
The children’s event, of course, has no direct bearing one way or the other. But it does help illustrate the international basis of the game.
I wouldn’t drop any sports.
If dropping sports has to be done, I agree with Astorian’s proposal.
According to the Summer Olympics Wikipedia article, there are four (non-weapon) martial arts in the current program: Judo, Taekwondo, freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling. I do not know enough about the two types of wrestling to write much about them, but Taekwondo and Judo are not similar at all. Traditional Judo does not have strikes, and Taekwondo does not have any grappling.
Karate and Wushu are not in the olympics, and as I have mentioned above Judo and Taekwondo do not incorporate both striking and grappling.
As you did not mention wrestling or boxing, I take it that you are only counting Taekwondo and Judo as martial arts. If so, then there are two martial arts. Also, why not just consolidate the weight classes instead of getting rid of a sport? Alternatively, you may mean that you would get rid of Taekwondo or Judo, because there are too many martial arts if one where to include boxing and the two types of wrestling. If the latter, then why get rid of Judo or Taekwondo instead of, say, boxing? As another poster mentioned earlier, the professional boxing competitions seem to be much more important.
Alternatively, one could incorporate all of the martial arts, including wrestling and boxing, into one competition. However, the various martial arts would be very different from each other, and it would be another MMA. I suspect it would be similar to having all of the biking competitions consolidated into one competition.
As mentioned before, I do not think that the various martial arts are similar enough to combine together. If you wanted to combine them, then it would turn into another version of MMA, but probably less bloody and with a very complicated scoring system.
And although the posts have been hit and miss about every other sport, Equestrian is pulling ahead of all the other also-rans by at least 20 lengths. A sport where a horse is doing more work than the human riding it just about violates any criterion for making it a sport.
Now maybe it could be spared if they integrate archery, fencing or shooting rifles into the sport, then maybe we would have some powerhouses from the middle western asian countries going for the gold.
All of them.
Seriously, I think the Olympics has had its day. When they finally bowed to the inevitable and officially (wink, wink) allowed professionals in, the ‘Olympic Ideal’ was officially no more (if it ever really existed).
All sports should have their own World Champs - organise them how they like - Cycling (annually), Athletics (Bi-annually), Soccer (quadrennially) - etc.
The problem is - The Olympics is the most valuable brand in the world - no one except immediate family of competitors would pay to watch synchronised swimming, greco-roman wrestling, Tae-Kwondo or (fill in your own favorite) - unless it is the Olympics. NBC would show a raspberry-blowing competition - if it was The Olympic Raspberry-Blowing Competition.
It’s the smaller sports that are the Olympics biggest supporters - they can gain some exposure and refelected kudos for their sport by hitching themselves to the Olympic Brand.
Isn’t that the argument for the continuing role of the Olympics–to serve as the high-profile pinnacle for all the sports that otherwise would have none?
Which brings us back to the argument that sports which already have an alternative pinnacle (World Cup, etc.) shouldn’t be in the Olympics, either. Except that those sports are often among the most popular and attract a certain segment that wouldn’t otherwise be interested. Thus we continue to have largely meaningless soccer games 
The Eastern Bloc had been sending professional athletes to the Olympics for almost their entire existence (i.e. the Eastern Bloc’s existence). The way I understand it, whether athletes were paid or not was up to the individual countries, not the IOC.
The whole ideal of amateurism was misguided, as well as wholly impractical. Dumping that concept was an unqualified improvement for the Games.
I think I agree. Who qualifies as an amateur has always seemed like an artificial distinction, anyway.
I went by what is actually an athletic event and voted “for” shooting. Archery could qualify too, except it does have a certain historical panache, and also, you do have to pull back and control the bow string. I think shooting involves considerable skill, including control over one’s fine motor skills to great degrees, but it’s just not exercise.
Reading the other responses, I think I could easily be persuaded to switch my vote to the equestrian events. Shooting is at least something everyone can do, if only in a gun range.
It makes me sad that table tennis has gotten quite a few votes. Have you people never watched professional level table tennis? The athleticism and reaction times on display are unreal. I think the fact that China is so dominant hurts the sport, unfortunately, but there’s not much you can do… they have a billion people over there and their top athletes all play table tennis.
If China was “only” as good as the 2nd-tier countries, like S. Korea, Japan, Germany, and Sweden, the sport would be much more interesting to follow.
Equestrian, rhythmic gymnastics, and synchronized swimming need to go. Actually, synchronized “anything” is rather silly. Synchronized diving? Why?
Do people do synchronized diving in any context ever, other than competitions building to the Olympics?
Would you favor swapping out shooting for paintball?
Hell, yes! Be hella fun to watch!
Tennis, absolutely. How the heck did this get in in the fist place? Where does it even fit? Unlike most sports, tennis already has a fairly rigid hierarchy of prestige for its events, from the Grand Slam at the very top to the junior level events on the bottom. Olympic tennis is just superfluous, completely thrown in. If we’re going to have it, make it amateurs-only* so it at least serves some purpose.
Soccer, likewise. Just the fact that World Cup players are prohibited speaks volumes. Utterly pointless.
Boxing. A damned disgrace. Every single Olympiad, corruption and bungling and robbery, and this asinine electronic scoring just compounds it. A boxing gold medal carries slightly more prestige than a fantasy league championship, and pretty much the same future professional prospects. If we need an Olympic sport with lots of hitting, bring in rugby. At least that one has some excitement.
Racewalking. Never mind that it’s an activity that the world’s best can do only slightly better than you or me, the problem is that it has zero entertainment value. Even the completely sports-ignorant can appreciate the spectacle of a power forward delivering a soaring dunk, a linebacker breaking free and drilling a hapless quarterback to the turf, or a steel-nerved shotmaker hitting from the rough between two trees and sticking it 5 feet from the hole. Racewalking has a bunch of people making the same damn motions over and over and over and over, trot trot trot trot, and all the time an official constantly hovers nearby and flips up a big red circle every time he catches something amiss. I mean, do I even have to explain how much this sucks? No wonder this was the sport the Brothers Chaps ridiculed in a Videlectrix game.
As for some others…
Subjective contests: They’re fine. Really. I used to scoff at them myself, but I learned that pretty games have their place. The big problem was miserable girls forced to sacrifice their childhoods, and this has largely been fixed. What’s completely, utterly wrong is a judged event getting the SAME KIND OF AWARD as a real sport. Ribbons. Or plaques. Or slates. Or if it has to be jewelry, bracelets, pendants, necklaces, anything other than medals.
Equestrian: In addition to the obvious issue of who really deserves to be on the podium, has the problem of being available to only a tiny subset of competitors. I.e., rich enough to own, care for, and train a large animal. The Olympics, at their core, are about the raw basics of athletic ability. Running. Jumping. Swimming. Throwing. Lifting. There’s a reason the motto is “faster, higher, stronger” and not “we can afford stables and riding facilities and you can’t”. I don’t mind this as a spectacle, but again, have some other award and stop pretending that it means as much as the 100 meter dash.
Judo/Taekwondo: I’m fine with judo. In addition to giving us the immortal Ryoko Tani, it’s the perfect Olympic event…frenetically paced, weirdly scored, and full of confusing rules. 
Taekwondo, though, was obviously just pandering to Korea, and I honestly don’t see what it has that karate, mueitai, savate, kung fu etc. don’t. There should be an entirely different event, “international karate”, incorporating elements from multiple striking disciplines and flexible enough that different martial artists can adapt to it.
Basketball: First, I propose that the IOC finally acknowledge that what happened in 1972 does not deserve the idiotic and morally bankrupt term “controversy” but was instead one of the most brazen, naked robberies in history, of which there is more than adequate proof, and as there is no “statute of limitations” on getting the result of a gold medal game correct, the result of that game is hereby officially reversed. The surviving Soviet players can keep their hardware, as it was given to them in good faith and they are not at fault for this vile injustice, but the record book will show the correct, true, actual, proper, right result. Secondly, I’d like the IOC to issue an official ruling that any and all medals won by political entities that no longer exist…in particular, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the German Democatic Republic…shall in perpetuity not be included in any way, shape, or form in the medal counts of any political entities that have either preceded or succeeded them, whether or not they shared the same geographic area or populace. Then we’re cool. 
- Just so we’re completely clear, I’m fully aware that the Olympics stopped being an amateur showcase decades ago (at least), and I’m fine with that. However, I’m all in favor of certain events being restricted to amateurs. Hey, we could have a different type of award for those as well!
Shooting is not athletic, in the sense that you need to work out at a gym with weights, run on treadmills, etc., in order to stay in shape for it.
But it is athletic, in the sense that you need to master your body, your breathing, and your mind. I was a competitive shooter for many years (smallbore rifle), and it is not easy to put five shots through a dime at 50 meters, without touching the edge. (Not to mention, you’re not allowed to use a telescopic sight.) You need to master your breathing, your patience, your rifle, and your attitude–you cannot blow a shot and say “Dammit!” and jam another in the chamber and close the bolt and blast it. Because every shot counts, and every shot is counted. I used to meditate before matches, and go in almost in a trance. That way, I could shut out the hustle and bustle of the match, and just concentrate on punching holes in the middle of a circular pattern on a piece of paper, fifty meters away.
I did actually end up trying out for Canada’s Olympic team in 1983 (for the 1984 Olympics), but didn’t make it. Still, it was a good experience.
I remember living at an ANU (Australian National University) residence back in '92. There was a table-tennis table in the large open area kitchen. And there were a lot of Chinese students living there.
Myself and a friend went down to the kitchen to play a game one night, but the table was already taken. Two Chinese guys were playing. An old guy and a young guy.
Apparently they were just practicing some basic drills. The young guy was standing about 10-15 feet back from the table and absolutely smashing every ball. As in, I could never have returned a single one of those hits.
The older guy was standing about 3 feet from the table and nonchalantly returning every smash while adding incredible amounts of spin to his returns. Every one of his casual hits would almost defy the laws of physics and bend down to land on the very corners of the table, and then the young guy would smash it back.
My friend and I asked the other Chinese guys who were watching why these guys were so good, and apparently the older guy was a former Beijing champion.
I’m not sure how good the younger guy was. Coulda been a contender, coulda been a pretender simply getting humoured by a master. I don’t know.
You’d have had to be there to appreciate just how impressive the reflexes of the older guy were. And I’m sure that any Olympic player would have wiped the floor with him.
There is no way that that sport should be taken out of the Olympics.