I didn’t watch them all but saw the Russian pair’s routine, which was an amazing spectacle, but still not a sport in my opinion.
I am going to go with both, the humongous – and personally, bogus – swimming disciplines (A to B, short, mid & long distances: screw medleys, it’s akin to ballroom dancing) and the myriad of “stupid” disciplines in indoor cycling. Please, figure out who’s fastest at short, mid & long distances in swimming & also stop horsing around with a 50’s pedal-cycle before you allow cyclist to, you know, race full bore.
I’d also get rid of the shot-put – like who cares for manly women and steroid pumped dudes throwing a cannon-ball for all of 2 seconds? – and all equestrian events. Specially the latter, as they have more than enough money (Olympic horses cost a fortune!) to host their own events.
As God is my witness they’re running a thing on CTV right now trying to defend synchronized swimming. And, as usual, it’s the same damn argument: “Well, it’s HARD! YOU try it if you’re so smart!”
I have never, ever, ever, not once in my life, heard anyone say synchronized swimming is a dumb sport because it’s easy. I’ve heard a thousand people say it’s ridiculous and shouldn’t be in the Olympics and not one of them said because it’s not hard. Of course it’s hard. It’s a dumb sport because it’s DUMB. It’s grotesque, it’s the most subjective sport in the Summer Games, and it’s an insult to real, established sports like baseball and golf that for some reason aren’t in the Olympics.
Who cares if it’s hard? You know what else is hard? Moving furniture. That’s really hard, as anyone who’s ever moved can say. So why not make that a sport? You know what else would be hard? Carrying a fucking piano around the track, so why isn’t piano carrying a sport? Hey, you know what’s really hard is fighting with a goddamned mountain lion. Should that be a sport? The standard of what should be in the Olympics should not be its being “hard.”
It’s certainly not the worst sport, and certainly very athletic, and timed in race format, etc…
…but flatwater canoing is damn near the goofiest-looking sport ever.
Washington DC needs to host, just so we can put it on the Delaware river and make them wear a wig and carry a flag.
Curling comes pretty damn close. Even in international* “Bonspiels” (funspeak for tournaments), I’ve had to go find an official if we just can’t tell which of two stones is closest to the center. Then an overweight white guy in a tam o’shanter (pre-req) ambles over with a cool calipers-on-a-stick that inserts in a center hole and swings around to hit one rock, then another.
Man, a Phelps/Lochte photo-finish has nothing on the drama of curling, eh?
*Well, okay, MN, WI and ONT… this sport is sounding more exciting by the moment, isn’t it?
Archery would be made much more enjoyable and interesting if the weaponry was equalized and simplified the way it is in javelin, shotput, discus etc. In other words, there would be a rack of uniform bows and arrows where any contestant would be able to pick up any weapon to make her single shot with. Unlike the über-complex, lightweight, precision-milled & molded Olympic archery gear, the bows would be simple, unadorned, man-tall longbows made from carbon-fiber tubing, pulling some 80 lbs. shooting big, heavy, large-feathered arrows. As with the traditional Cherokee cornstalk shooting, not only accuracy but also penetration would be factored in the results.
The heavy, simple bows would add some real athleticism into the game, the big-ass arrows would be highly visible in flight to viewers (the way javelins are), and the shooting much more varied unlike in the modern style that is like emotionless clockwork: tiny carbon sticks zipping into the centers of the target faces from stabilizer-infected caricatures of bows drawn with as little (e)motion as possible.
The need to not only hit but also to penetrate (the way it always was, in the real world) would bring different tactics into the game. Someone might count on extremely long, powerful draws to gain in penetration with a little cost in accuracy, for instance. The archery finals would be manned by real athletes with the real possibility of highly visible successes and failures, just like any enjoyable viewer sport. The fact that modern Olympic archery is more accurate than archery ever was bears no correlation with the athletic or entertainment value of the sport. The best Olympic archers will stand on the podium, no matter what the objective level of accuracy is.
What they’ve turned fencing into makes me want to cry. Two adults ldressed like hockey goalies wearing welding masks standing in a child’s two-square outline taking turns playing tag with long flexible metal styluses.
I’m a curler who will defend the sport against all who dare to speak ill of it, but still, in the not-too-distant past, players used to smoke while they were playing.
At American clubs, you can often take a beer out to the rink, as long as it’s in a plastic cup, and you keep it away from the ice itself. It’s illegal to take a beer down to the rink in Ontario, where liquor laws restrict drinking at curling clubs to the bar area.
Ultimate is close, but at the higher levels they now have observers. With a few tweaks I think Ultimate would make a fantastic spectator sport, but as it stands with the self officiating aspect of the game it gets a bit too bogged down with players making the calls.
Dump these, they’re not real sports: archery, equestrian, handball, sailing, shooting, and synchronized swimming.
The 5% comment about American football versus soccer 95%, well, 95% of the world is absolutely wrong. NFL football is the best combination of all of these: speed, strength, power, violence, dexterity, grace and accuracy. No other sport comes close. It is the greatest sport in the world.