[Olympics] Which Sports Are Missing, Which Should Be Eliminated

I'm actually interested in watching equestrian this year for one reason: Hiroshi Hoketsu. The man is 66 and has not competed in the Olympics since the 1964 Games in Tokyo. That's just a cool story, no bones about it.

 

Equestrian needs to go.

 

I don't know which should go from the Summer Olympics, but baseball definitely should not go. It's still the second or third-most popular sport (depending on how you measure popularity) in the world, but because Europeans don't play it (despite the fact that North and South Americans and Asians do), it gets eliminated. And I don't care that MLB players don't get to play. It's still good baseball.

The really stupid Winter Olympics sport that should go is the dumb team skating race where they just kinda jaunt around the ice for 90% of the race before a sprint to the finish.

 

I mentioned this earlier in the thread but I seriously think Pankration should be brought back. Pankration was the original MMA art of the ancient Olympics and resembles modern MMA.

From the Human Weapon

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Totally agree with you there. They should at least give the horse the medal.

 

They should eliminate everything where judging determines the winner. Gymnastics, diving, boxing, etc. It's all totally corrupt. Along with that, they can eliminate handball, shooting, equestrian, weightlifting, anything with the word "synchronized" in the title, trampoline (WTF?), table tennis.

The only sports should be swimming, track and field, cycling, soccer, basketball, tennis, volleyball, water polo, and perhaps baseball/softball.

 

If you do that... then you have to take out anything where a referee can change the game too... they can be corrupt. That means that volleyball, basketball, tennis, baseball, softball and soccer all have to be eliminated as well.

Taking a narrow point of view on judging sports means you don't think that a ref has the power to determine a players minutes, ie Yao getting extra fouls and having to leave the game, and give the other team an advantage.

I said this to my mom tonight when she said it's not fair. Sometimes in sports you have to beat the other team and the people who are in charge of controlling it. That's just part of the game.

I think that's why the possible referee scandal doesn't bother me as much as it does others. It frustrates me to no end, but we have all experienced it in sports we play... sometimes the ref is just an idiot and you have to win despite him.

 

They should have a horse as one of the judges.

 

There are certainly sports where referees can impact a game but the degree is completely different. In a basketball game, you get a couple of bad calls and you can still overcome it to win the game. In these events when you get a bad call that's your score, period. The scoring is set within a parameter, you can't exceed it in the event the judges are screwing you. Plus, these other sports don't have the pressure of nationalism involved. Vote trading and such between friendly nations. In fact that used to be a running joke in the Olympics, any time a Soviet friendly country was part of the judges panel.

I don't know if you remember what happened to Roy Jones Jr. in Korea. Pound for pound one of the greatest boxers of all time, defeated by some nobody at the Olympics because the judging was rigged. Try to watch some of the Olympic boxing, it's horrible.

 

"In a highly controversial 3-2 judge's decision, South Korean fighter Park Si-Hun defeated American Roy Jones Jr., despite Jones pummeling Park for three rounds, landing 86 punches to Park's 32. Allegedly, Park himself apologized to Jones afterwards. One judge shortly thereafter admitted the decision was a mistake, and all three judges voting against Jones were eventually suspended. Most observers still believe the judges were either bribed or otherwise coerced to vote for the local fighter by Korean officials. However, the official IOC investigation concluding in 1997 found no wrongdoing, and the IOC still officially stands by the decision. A similarly controversial decision went against American Michael Carbajal. These incidents led Olympic organizers to establish a new scoring system for Olympic boxing."

Lol IOC.

 

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Wow, if it was China who did that, I think some people here like SamFisher will talk about it daily to bash China for the next ten years. But it's a non-issue if the violator is not China.

 

Add: Paintball (singles, and team)

Air Hockey (singles and doubles)


Drop: Rhythmic Gymnastics

 

Lots of American fans still remember Roy Jones Jr. getting screwed by those judges. It was definitely not a non-issue and that's why I never trust judging, especially when the host country is involved. There's always so much incentive for them to cheat. Same way we lost to the Soviets in Munich with our baskeball team.

 

I am saying it is a non-issue to the resident pissing match specialists in the D&D. Have you ever seen them raise this incident? But if the one who cheated in this case is China, this would have been talked about 100 times in the last few months.

 

I do agree that if winning a gold isn't the pinnicle for an individual, it shouldn't be in the Olympics particularly at the professional level.

Tennis should be gone, as should Soccor.

But I do think team sports are important for the Olympics - particularly for sports like volley ball, water polo, cycling, and rowing. and you keep the rifling stuff - the whole point of the olympics is to give some of these sports a venue for competition.

That's why surfing doesn't belong in the olympics. nor does tennis, nor golf, cricket nor rugby etc....

i would like to see wushu added though - seems like this would have been the perfect year.

 

I think its a disgrace baseball is getting the flick.

I would suggest it has something to do with host cities having to build an entire stadium just for the baseball....one less stadium to build if its gone.

 

Are you kidding me?

The Korean robbery of RJJ made me cry as a little child. I remember watching it on NBC, it occurred on a Saturday afternoon or night, in fact I rembmer the exact quote from Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, right before the decision was announced "If Jones doesn't win than something is rotten in the state of Denmark [maybe he said korea, but obvioulsly alluding to the famous line from Hamlet]. THen Marv Albert said something. The IABF or whatever later sheepishly admitted the robbery by awarding RJJ the "most outstanding boxer" award or some bullsh-t like that.

To make matters worse, the sh-ttastic judging system introduced after that has resulted in even more robbery of american fighters. The Torsten May-Montell Griffin bout in 1992 stands in my memory (May was bloodied and beaten but his air punches were scored and he got a thoroughly undeserved victory). Eric Griffin also got screwed badly several years ago, as have countless other Americn fighters. Contrast that with the Cuban fighters, who are admittedly excellent, but often get incredibly favorable judging (only amateurs in the world who get credit for body shots).

You stand corrected my young friend. Very corrected.

 

Ive watched a bit of the boxing the last few days and its as bad as ever.

 

See, you list two examples, basketball and boxing yet you only wants to get rid of boxing, but not basketball.

Look, from the referee perspective, the system they are using right now in boxing, gymnastics, diving are more objective than basketball. In gymnastics, they remove the high/low scores and have specific scoring rules for any mistakes you make there. They can even using instant replay now.

In all honesty, it's easier to fix a basketball game than boxing/diving/weightlifting, etc. But as there is only two gold medals for basketball and much more viewers watch it, it's harder to bribe the referee as it's scrutinized more. It's easier for you to argue that just cutting any games that don't have certain tv ratings, I think.

 

Given the incredibly lengthy history of fixed boxing matches - you're wrong as rain.