Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Olympic Stupidity

The IOC recently announced it would drop wrestling as an Olympic sport. Definitely a dumb move. I'm not a wrestler or even a fan, but it's a classic Olympic sport.

 
How about they get rid of:
  • Rhythmic gymnastics - Do I need to explain this one?
  • Synchronized swimming - This is more like art. Why not make ballet an Olympic sport?
  • Synchronized diving - Should every sport have its own synchronized event - hurdles, pole vault, 1500m, etc?
  • Trampoline - It's too subjective and seems silly. My 3 year old jumps on a trampoline.
  • Soccer -the World Cup is the real event. No one cares about soccer at the Olympics
  • Tennis - Similar to Soccer: there is the Grand Slam
  • Badminton - This a lawn sport. What about lawn bowling or croquet.
  • BMX - There is already the X Games.
  • Table tennis - This is a parlor game. Why not have darts and billiards?.
Drop the planned addition:
  • Golf: For the same reason as soccer, tennis
  • Rugby: This is too local. I don't think baseball/softball should be back either for the same reasons.
Nix all other new sports:  karate, wushu (kungfu),  rollersports, wakeboarding, squash and sports (rock) climbing. Okay, maybe keep squash. Karate and kungfu would be good, but there is already judo and taekwando. The Chinese are trying to fill the Olympics with sports they are good at to win the medal counts. 

Change swimming to one race for each distance. Take out all the different styles, you shouldn't be able to win multiple medals at one distance because there are five different strokes. The breaststroke is a resting stroke. I never saw the point of trying to see who can do a resting stroke the fastest. That's like saying with the 100m final there could be Hopping, Backwards, Normal, Sideways, and Tied Hands.

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