Olympic Sports you don't like

[Magrat Garlick]

Thread went down bizarrely rapidly after the opening post for mine.

Can't stand beach volleyball (as previously mentioned: it's soft porn pretending to be a sport), but recognise the point of marketing it at the Olympics. That's the key point people are missing here imo - at the Olympics a person can find the sport appealing to his or her own tastes, as opposed to the rest of the calendar year when one has to go out of one's way to avoid football. So talking of removing sports based on their own personal distaste makes little sense, as someone else (in case of handball, three quarters of Europe) will like it and that's the reason it made it in the first place.

Not sold on taekwondo as a sport though. (And this comes from someone who used to train it.) Just a mixture of various martial arts conveniently created for Korean nationalistic purposes. Also played with so much protective equipment that the umpire has the final say.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Yeah, look I don't really mind whether it's in or not, just wanted to say it was hard, wasn't citing it as a case for or against inclusion - I didn't make that clear.

That being said, fans of Swimming over Athletics could perhaps make the same arguments of events such as Hurdles and Steeplechase and could probably make a case against the Triple Jump. But I love all those events so...

Don't even have to go that far. 200m and 5000m are just cheap doubling up opportunities. Hurdling I can see the point in, but the 400 hurdles is, again, just a couple of years' investment in technique. The throwing events have been split up by geographical region and thus none of them has a decent level (if I'd have to pick one it'd probably be the discus).

Gaaah! Dragged down to their level!

 

[Goughy]

Look there are millions of sports out there. Anyone who likes them can make a case for them.

I mentioned sports I enjoy that I dont think should be there. It isnt realy about personal preference.

Handball goes as the game is as shallow as a puddle, repetetive and looks like designed by a 6 year old with no imagination. There are obviously players that are better than others but I cant se anything that makes handball players particularly skillful. Every attack follows the same pattern and the players dont look right in their outfits. England have signed a small group of people to learn the game in 4 years and be competetive in 2012. Any time you can hope a small group of people with no experience can get to top level in 4 years doesnt say much for the sport.

I wouldnt also care if triple and pole vault went (and I was a triple jumper). Though I would love the mile added. Its an easy 4 laps of the track and 1500m is so awkward.

There are so many sports in the Olympics. Its great to see the cull beginning with softball removed for 2012.

Anyone can make a case for any sport but I dont want to see bicyle jousting in there, just as I dont want to see beach voleyball.

Actualy, Id be tempted to take all team sports out apart from Basketball and Volleyball. Goodbye to football, handball, baseball, softball etc and also Id get rid of Tennis (another tacky add-on).

 

[Magrat Garlick]

England have signed a small group of people to learn the game in 4 years and be competetive in 2012. Any time you can hope a small group of people with no experience can get to top level in 4 years doesnt say much for the sport.

It's just a gimmick. They will lose by 30-odd goals in every match - they're already a year into their training and still barely beating the Faroe Islands.

Can sort of see your point on the tactical side of the game (though the use of the line player keeps the defenders from man marking), but that applies to every team sport with a ball - you go up, keep control of the ball until you lose it or take a shot. The closest comparison is basketball, which suffers from obvious problems: opportunity to stand offside for three seconds (with ditto judgment calls), bizarre point scoring, shots that miss by a foot and hit the back plate are better than shots that miss by an inch and bounce over, and missing the second free throw is better than sinking it.

I mentioned sports I enjoy that I dont think should be there. It isnt realy about personal preference.

Hence the reason I said the thread went downwards. You've used a thread about "sports I don't like" to vent about "sports that shouldn't be at the Games but some of which I still might like" (despite already having a go about this in the rant thread), which is an entirely different kettle of kettlefish. Should just have let the thread sink, alternatively created your own.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

I don't get why the rowing has all of these short distances (seemingly up to 2k), yet there's no endurance row - similarly with swimming. Both sports at the olympics seem to have hundreds of sprint type events, but no tests of endurance. Where's the 20k swim or the 20k row? Completely different test of skill from sprinting events which seem 10 a penny in both sports.

Or are these just not shown on the box and I'm barking up the wrong tree?

Plus, handball should be taken out. Rubbish.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

I don't get why the rowing has all of these short distances (seemingly up to 2k), yet there's no endurance row - similarly with swimming. Both sports at the olympics seem to have hundreds of sprint type events, but no tests of endurance. Where's the 20k swim or the 20k row? Completely different test of skill from sprinting events which seem 10 a penny in both sports.

All rowing events are over 2 kilometres. Longer straight tracks are impractical, longer bent tracks unfair. Canoeing has only half a kilometre and one kilometre though - not exactly sprints either, in terms of exertion of time they're about middle distance - guess the reason here is that they don't want too many races. (There's long distance canoeing at the World Championships, but then they paddle down rivers and have to carry the canoe.)

Marathon swimming (10 km) is reintroduced this year and will be held for the first time in ages on Wednesday.

 

[Dick Rockett]

Ok, to start off with, I'm pretty much in agreement with those that say that sports that need judges shouldn't be there. As for the team sports, most of them aren't the pinnacle of their sports so they shouldn't be there. Get rid of:

Diving - needs to be judged and it's not really apparent what happened until you watch the slow motion replay.
Synchronised Swimming - a complete joke. It's dancing in the water. Ridiculous.
Water Polo - Handball in the water, do we need both? And seriously, who cares anyway?
Race Walking - WTF is this? It's the Bob Cunis of sport - neither one thing nor the other.
Baseball - Not a world sport, and the "World Series" is the pinnacle anyway.
Equestrian - Despite our proud record in this, the Olympics is for humans.
Football - weird player eligibility rules and not even close to approaching the world cup in importance.
Judo and Taekwondo - why should these particular martial arts be preferred over myriad others?
Modern Pentathlon - just plain silly. Anyway, if we were to stick to the rationale for including it in the first place, it'd involve driving tanks, flying attack helicopters, sneaking around in the dark, humiliating prisoners of war and inadvertently killing your allies.
Softball - Same rationale as baseball. I'm also at a loss to explain why it's included for women but not men.
Tennis, both regular and table - No professional values Olympic gold over Wimbledon or the US Open, and table tennis is a leisure activity, not a sport. Why not have Olympic Fussball, Snooker and Air Hockey while you're at it?
Beach Volleyball - Where's beach cricket/rugby/soccer? Taking the piss this is.

Of the other controversial sports, I'd keep Gymnastics and Handball, although I'm not sure why. Oh, and keep cricket and rugby far, far away.

EDIT: good to note that baseball and softball are both gone from the London Games.

 

[_Ed_]

Good to see that my three, beach volleyball, synchronised swimming and the walking race, have already been mentioned. Also not really a fan of rhythmic gymnastics, although that might just be because it comes after the much more impressive artistic gymnastics stuff and looks really average in comparison. People dancing with ribbons. Great.

 

[steds]

This thread just reminded me of this. Ten stupidest Olympic sports.

 

[Simon]

Any sport that is decided by judges etc... Too open to cheating by officials. Also half of the swimming events, as awesome as Phelps is its quite absurd he was in the position to win eight gold medals in the first place. Most sports have very few medals and swimming is just a joke.

 

[Johnners]

Thread went down bizarrely rapidly after the opening post for mine.

Can't stand beach volleyball (as previously mentioned: it's soft porn pretending to be a sport), but recognise the point of marketing it at the Olympics. That's the key point people are missing here imo - at the Olympics a person can find the sport appealing to his or her own tastes, as opposed to the rest of the calendar year when one has to go out of one's way to avoid football. So talking of removing sports based on their own personal distaste makes little sense, as someone else (in case of handball, three quarters of Europe) will like it and that's the reason it made it in the first place.

Not sold on taekwondo as a sport though. (And this comes from someone who used to train it.) Just a mixture of various martial arts conveniently created for Korean nationalistic purposes. Also played with so much protective equipment that the umpire has the final say.

AWTA

Beach Volleyball is my only real bugbear.

 

[steds]

Not sold on taekwondo as a sport though. (And this comes from someone who used to train it.)

And used to get his arse kicked by girls iirc. Someone's bitter.

 

[Simon]

What's the deal with dressage? Unless you paid the GDP per person of a middle income country for your education what are the odds you will ever participate in it?

My girlfriend competes in dressage and she's yet to convince me that it should be an Olympic sport. She firmly believes it's place there is warranted though so let them have it.

 

[andruid]

We are all agreed Beach Volleyball is a sham

 

[Simon]

We are all agreed Beach Volleyball is a sham

For sure, Volleyball itself is a good sport and worthy of being in the Olympics, but beach volleyball is a waste of time.

 

[pasag]

Athletics.

 

[ohtani's jacket]

Every Olympics we have to endure this stupidity.

How is an Olympic sport validated by whether you like it or want to see it on your screen? Who pays attention to sports they're not interested in?

I hope they bring in stupider and stupider sports to annoy everyone. Chess Boxing!

 

[Dick Rockett]

Chess Boxing!

I'd watch that.

 

[GIMH]

Don't even have to go that far. 200m and 5000m are just cheap doubling up opportunities. Hurdling I can see the point in, but the 400 hurdles is, again, just a couple of years' investment in technique. The throwing events have been split up by geographical region and thus none of them has a decent level (if I'd have to pick one it'd probably be the discus).

Gaaah! Dragged down to their level!

Nah, they do test different things to the other events. 200 is harder than 100, obv, hence why sprinters like Christie could never truly master it the way they did the 100, and why some 400 runners (eg Johnson) could beat the 100 runners at it. As for the 5k, it falls nicely between middle and long distance, it's a tough race and usually good to watch

 

[sanga1337]

Equestrian and basketball are my two main gripes. And I don't hate soccer but far out SBS shows it so often when they could be showing other stuff that rarely gets seen. This applies to swimming to a lesser extent but I like watching it and at least each race doesn't last 90 minutes.