Future Olympic Sports - What Should Be In And What Out ?

[Ed Anger]

I would be an excellent Nerf machine gunner. 

There's a counter for that. 

Bah, I am excellent at ambushing 4 year olds. Euros ain't much smarter.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Swimming events should be cut by a factor of 4.  Phelps is good, but being able to win 37 gold medals in one year, because swimming with your left pinky up, and with it down, counts as two separate medal events, is ridiculous.  A lot of those events should be combined into either a combo event, or just a multi-round competition.

This is stupid.  Only a retard wouldn't be able to see the differences between distances and strokes and only a retard would think the abilities needed to win, for example, the 50m free would easily translate to the 200 butterfly.   You might have a point if, say, Phelps was dominating every event and having no trouble, etc, but he isn't.  He, and everyone else, are only in certain events that they are good enough to qualify in (for Phelps, it's the IMs, 100 + 200 butterfly, 200 freestyle, and the relays.  This leaves out 50, 100, 400, and 1500 freestyle and all distances of breaststroke and backstroke.  Because he would probably get smoked in a lot of those.).

Also, the record is 8, not 37.  It's a record because it doesn't happen very often.  Only twice, actually, and both times by Phelps.  The previous record was 7,  which had been done in swimming, gymnastics, and shooting.   Multiple times in each one.

E:  And for the topic....ballroom dancing is an Olympic sport?  We should send Emmitt Smith?

[Eddie Teach]

Also, the record is 8, not 37.  It's a record because it doesn't happen very often.  Only twice, actually, and both times by Phelps.

Only once, he only won 6 medals in '04.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Also, the record is 8, not 37.  It's a record because it doesn't happen very often.  Only twice, actually, and both times by Phelps.

Only once, he only won 6 medals in '04.

Six gold medals.  Also got two bronze.  The dude is just ridiculous. 

E:  I guess you're right, the guy did only say gold medals.  Even more ridiculous then.  Good luck seeing that again.  Although maybe that Chinese chick can pull it off next time around, assuming they'll even enter her in enough events in order to keep her from burning out.  Some of this shit they're having to do, like Franklin I think it was, swimming an event (a heat?) then a final ~ten minutes later, has got to be really really hard on you.

[alfred russel]

Because when the Olympics is not the pinnacle of sporting achievement in a field it lacks something. The tennis players are in the off season and in variable shape, Gareth Bale dropped out of the 35 man squad for the UK soccer team due to "injury" but managed to play full games during Tottenham's tour of the USA.

I'm in favor of reducing the size of the contest. Right now the olympics requries facilities for all the world's major sports. While I love team handball very few people outside northern europe, spain and south korea care. The team sports would benefit from holding their own world championships in places where the locals care who wins. The individual sports would benefit from not having sports superstars slumming it or showing up half injured just to take in the atmosphere.

I don't know about handball, but in basketball I think there will be difficulty in setting up a tournament that people care about/stars participate in outside of the Olympic framework. The Olympics bring their own credibility.

[PRC]

Caber toss.

[Eddie Teach]

Six gold medals.  Also got two bronze.  The dude is just ridiculous. 

My impression is the bronze were from Sydney and that he only competed in 6 events in Athens. Course, I wasn't really following the Olympics those years.

[MadBurgerMaker]

My impression is the bronze were from Sydney and that he only competed in 6 events in Athens. Course, I wasn't really following the Olympics those years.

Nah, he only swam in one event in Sydney and didn't medal.  He was only like 15 years old at the time.

Athens was 6 gold, 2 bronze.  Beijing was 8 gold.  London is 1 gold, 2 silver so far.  I think he's "only" in 7 events this time around?

E:  Speaking of which, and because of the thread where the Chinese swimmer is mentioned, I looked up his 200 fly time in Sydney:  1:56.50.  Four years later, he was at 1:54.04 (oly record).  Eight years later, he hit 1:52.03 (world record).  This year, he swam it in 1:53.01.  No huge fluctuations in there.

[Josquius]

I don't know about handball, but in basketball I think there will be difficulty in setting up a tournament that people care about/stars participate in outside of the Olympic framework. The Olympics bring their own credibility.

I dunno, give basketball time.
Though its rise in the UK has stalled and crashed in East Asia it is rapidly becoming very, very popular. Give it a few decades and they might well get up to a good enough standard. I believe there are some European countries with decent level pro basketball too

[Syt]

I'm not sure if American Football would be successful in the Olympics. It's doubtful that there would be NFL pros risking injury during an additional 4-6 (or however many) games in preparation for the season, not to mention the short downtime between individual games (3 games a week?).

Austria hosted the Football world cup last year. I didn't attend any games, but it seems the level of play was pretty poor - why would anyone want to see that televised in a major sports celebration like the Olympics?

[The Brain]

Handing out medals for inefficient ways of doing the same thing, like in swimming, should go. Also weight classes should go. You're 120 lbs but think you're a great boxer? Think again.

[Admiral Yi]

Handing out medals for inefficient ways of doing the same thing

Walk racing. 

[The Brain]

Handing out medals for inefficient ways of doing the same thing

Walk racing. 

Been on my hate list since I learned that there was such a thing.

[Eddie Teach]

Handing out medals for inefficient ways of doing the same thing, like in swimming, should go. Also weight classes should go. You're 120 lbs but think you're a great boxer? Think again.

Bah, they should add a backwards marathon.

[Duque de Bragança]

Rink hockey since field hockey sucks and ice hockey is for Winter Olympics.
Actually, roller hockey (the other name) used to be a demonstration sport at Barcelona '92.