04/25/24
September 23, 2004
New Olympic Sports being considered for 2012: include golf, rugby, karate, squash and "roller sports," while softball, baseball and modern pentathlon may be on the chopping block.
If, as Jacques Rogge has stipulated, no new sport can be added without being deleted, what would you add and what would you remove?
posted by chicobangs to other at 09:29 AM - 30 comments
roller sports? hell no. unless its of the derby variety. Karate would be cool. Tai Kwan Do is great to watch, and I'd like to learn more about the differences between the two styles. re: deletion...there are so many, i'm sure one is expendable.
posted by garfield at 09:37 AM on September 23, 2004
Darts should be an Olympic sport, dagnabbit! If Andy Fordham isn't an athlete, I don't know who is!
posted by BigCalm at 09:41 AM on September 23, 2004
can rhythmic gymnastics, trampoline, and synchronised swimming & diving. add rugby. karate wouldn't be bad either. then at the end of the games they can have a UFC-style battle royale with all of the medalists of the combat sports (judo, wrestling, taekwondo and karate). you know, like they have that exhibition night with the gymnasts and figure skaters. oh, and make the men's beach volleyballers play shirtless.
posted by goddam at 09:59 AM on September 23, 2004
Delete all events that are scored by judges.
posted by molafson at 10:54 AM on September 23, 2004
Yeah. Where the hell did synchronized diving come from? That's a friggin' parlor trick, not a sport. Same for rhythmic gymnastics. Sorry. I agree that rugby should be in. (I can wait for bowling to clear society's arbitrary hurdles.)
posted by chicobangs at 11:08 AM on September 23, 2004
Rugby sevens would be a good addition, I think: it was added to the 2002 Commonwealth Games and worked well. I'd say byebye to synchronised swimming/diving and rhythmic gymnastics. Sorry. Not sports. Oh, and baseball. Just for shits and giggles.
posted by etagloh at 11:15 AM on September 23, 2004
Yeah. Where the hell did synchronized diving come from? That's a friggin' parlor trick, not a sport. Same for rhythmic gymnastics. Sorry. I'm all for removing those ones, but the ribbon event in rhythmic gymnastics is pretty frickin' amazing to watch. Toss it from the actual competition, but keep it as part of the opening/closing ceremonies. Do we need all those different yachting classes? How different are they, really? Wouldn't it be like having baseball, softball and slo-pitch softball and burby? Add the paralympic sports to the Olympics after you remove all the judged events, and make them part of the primetime lineup.
posted by grum@work at 11:36 AM on September 23, 2004
Amen.
posted by chicobangs at 11:54 AM on September 23, 2004
If we're having team sports (which is a debate in itself) from my anglo-centric view point I would echo the calls for some sort of rugby and would add 20/20 cricket. I know most people on here don't care about cricket but it's the form of the game most likely to convert the unenlightened - fast, fun and short.
posted by Pete at 01:37 PM on September 23, 2004
Ultimate. It is a World Games sport, so we may indeed see it at the Olympics within a few decades.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 01:37 PM on September 23, 2004
Baseball isn't an Olympic sport, IMO. I love baseball, but it has never really felt like it belonged to me. Neither is softball, actually. Perhaps squash of the ones being proposed. Golf doesn't feel like it belongs either. I don't have any logic for this, just emotion.
posted by Joey Michaels at 02:10 PM on September 23, 2004
Karate? What a nightmare! I suspect if you talk with those in the know, you'll find that the #1 problem with adding any Olympic sport is establishing which international governing organization is going to be the organization as far as the IOC is concerned. "There can only be one", and the angst over working that out varies from sport to sport, but with most martial arts it would have all the intensity, fervor, and can't-let-it-die-ness of an honest-to-god religious war. Taekwondo was bad enough, with only two associations of any real size and strength; karate would be orders of magnitude worse. Squash is a cool sport. So's rugby. I think that tennis tells us everything we need to know about how it would go with golf, so let's not and say we did. And when "roller sports" can get around to actually defining an event, much less some kind of governing body, it might be ready to be considered. "Roller sports" is not an event. What to delete? I'll go with rhythmic gymnastics. So-called "modern" pentathlon seems much more like Special Sports For Aristocrats, as one would expect given its history. Bag it. And I think softball is on thin ice.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 05:07 PM on September 23, 2004
Roller sports covers five disciplines -- artistic, downhill, hockey, inline hockey and speed events. not quite sure what that means though. would they pick one discipline? and what's the difference between hockey and inline hockey? do they actually play with old school roller skates? i agree that softball is on thin ice. and i think the US dominating these past games didn't help their cause much.
posted by goddam at 05:58 PM on September 23, 2004
Please, please just drop those "artistic" events. Whether it's in skiing, diving, gymnastics, swimming, ice skating, roller sports, let's get rid of those judged, dance-like, freestyle, aesthetic sports. If you want, go ahead and have a separate Olympic confabulation for those events, like the Paralympics. Maybe call it the Dancealympics, the Aesthetelympics, the Artisticalympics, the Judgealympics, the Lamealympics... I don't know. Whatever you call it, don't call it Olympic Games. I also think Team and Individual Dodgeball should be Olympic events.
posted by worldcup2002 at 09:46 PM on September 23, 2004
Add Jiu-Jitsu. It's way more fun to watch than the other martial arts. And more fun to practice too. :) To make room for it, drop any of those suggested above. I'd be all for removing baseball.
posted by rocketman at 09:53 PM on September 23, 2004
I reckon you should remove any event for which acquiring the Olympic title is not the pinnacle of achievement for the sport - tennis is a perfect example - the players don't care, so why should we? Part of me would like to see golf in the Olympics - as an international amateur team event - but most of me would have to admit that my own rule wouldn't hold true for golf. As for how easy/difficult/different the various events are to each other... keep an eye on this site for further updates as I work my way through them all before Beijing 2008. [/shameless self-promotion]
posted by JJ at 02:44 AM on September 24, 2004
Add Jiu-Jitsu. It's way more fun to watch than the other martial arts. Lessee...Brazilian, danzan-ryu, aiki, kaze arashi, Gracie, Gracie USA, Kicks for Christ, ??? I rest my case.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 06:37 AM on September 24, 2004
Hey JJ, can you put that link in your profile?
posted by garfield at 06:59 AM on September 24, 2004
garfield, I can, and I have!
posted by JJ at 08:05 AM on September 24, 2004
I wasn't talking to you, lil_brown_bat.
posted by rocketman at 08:25 AM on September 24, 2004
How about adding kickball?
posted by trox at 08:55 AM on September 24, 2004
.....or butts-up: elite athletes chucking a tennis ball against a massive concrete wall while limited to one handed catches. a match could last days. think of the endurance needed. and those penalties. owwiee!
posted by garfield at 09:07 AM on September 24, 2004
thanks JJ. you rock and are THE MAN (seriously)
posted by garfield at 09:08 AM on September 24, 2004
i like it.
posted by garfield at 09:45 AM on September 24, 2004
I do rock, and am, as you say, the man. I'm modest with it. Update on the result of last night's Olympic endeavours (badminton, men's doubles) has now been posted.
posted by JJ at 10:36 AM on September 24, 2004
On the other hand - how about Poker? Or maybe a spelling bee? Or some kind of Strongman Decathlon where they have to carry heavy rocks and tow 18-wheelers with their teeth and push trees up staircases and whatnot?
posted by chicobangs at 01:44 PM on September 24, 2004
Strongman. That's brilliant!
posted by garfield at 09:45 PM on September 24, 2004
how about a superstars/battle of the network stars type competition. tandem bicycle, kayaks in the swimming pool, obstacle course, etc. and with gabe kaplan doing commentary.
posted by goddam at 10:37 PM on September 24, 2004
"...without another being deleted, ..." They're talking Summer Olympics only here, though if anyone wants to nominate, oh, Ice Dancing for removal, I wouldn't argue.