Sports you'd remove from the Olympics

Anything where the Olympics is not the pinnacle for the sport. If it's not the ultimate accolade to win the gold at the Olympics, then the sport should not be there. Football is the most obvious example of this.
 
Vertigo1 said:
Yes Phelps is a phenomenal swimmer but calling him the "greatest Olympian" as a result of him obtaining more gold medals than anyone else is offensive to the likes of Steve Redgrave, whose Olympic achievements far exceed that of Phelps IMO.
Click to expand...

I agree. Surely the title "The Greatest Olympian" should be at the very least calculated on gold medals won per event entered with a minimum 3 olympics attended. Phelps may well still come out on top but it certainly shouldn't be calculated simply of the gross number of medals.
 
Bubo said:
I agree. Surely the title "The Greatest Olympian" should be at the very least calculated on gold medals won per event entered with a minimum 3 olympics attended. Phelps may well still come out on top but it certainly shouldn't be calculated simply of the gross number of medals.
Click to expand...


What the hell, to be honest, to that post and to the one you quoted. Redgraves better, because, he's English? I'm not exactly sure what he did that was better then Phelps, he won medals in the same event, multiple times, the reason Phelps hasn't(yet, maybe) is simply because he's younger. Which pretty much puts Redgrave being better down to , having been alive long enough to be at more Olympics. Sure he did great, but, as with everyone here, everyones idea of what shouldn't be there is simply what sports they don't like to watch. I won't watch mens volleyball, but why take away their chance for glory in the sport they love.

Likewise, calling Redgrave better than Phelps is really only based on the fact he's English. Redgrave, 5 golds(was it, i can't remember) Phelps, 762 goals, but somehow he's not as good. To be honest, even though they are similar events he's still fitting in top performances crammed very very close together, which by all measures is really harder than competing in one or two events over several Olympics.

AS for running, saying the 400/800 are "nothing" like the 100 and 200 is ridiculous, what you mean to say is, they do the exact same thing, but use different tactics and speed, hardly takes a genius to run a little slower for longer or years of training to learn to do. If you've got a good runners physique, muscle, power, you're 95% of the way there.

I'm not entirely sure why more runners don't compete in more races, no real need to? More heats in general and more events to qualify for to even get to the Olympics, bad schedual for the races at athletics meets making it very difficult, not really sure. Theres also the fact that Phelps rarely had to swim more than 200m, lots of short events.
 
drunkenmaster said:
The only reason no one cares about the football, is its at a silly time of year and the under 23 thing is utterly ridiculous. THe best footballers, from one very specific group, makes zero sense and its why no one cares. If you're the very best country in the world, think France 6 years ago, but 90% of the team isn't allowed to play and so France lose, its ridiculous. The sport is fine, the age limit should be lifted.
Click to expand...

The under23 age limit is actually better, it gives youngsters something to aim for and it means theres more emphasise on raising homegrown young nationals etc.

Brazil and Argentina are mad for their golds, and look at their teams, they are hardly weak.
The only reason its not big in the UK is because we have to enter a GB team, and if we do it means we have to enter GB team in WC or something?
 
Beach Volleyball.

How do you pick a team for that, stroll down the beach the day before the Olympics? The women arn't even attractive for the most part, so thats not a reason to keep it.
 
I have to agree with everyone else on removing Basketball, Football and Tennis.

Any sport that already has defining tournament/tournaments such as the world cup and the major's in tennis shouldn't be at the olympics
 
drunkenmaster said:
What the hell
Click to expand...

Don't think you understood what I was getting at. Simply counting up the total number of golds someone has got over their olympic carrer is not a valid way of defining "The Greatest Olympian", if for some sports it is possible to enter multiple events in one Olympics when others can't. I did say it should be based on percentage of golds won to events entered, which Phelps will probably still come out on top at the end of his carrer. I didn't mention Steve Redgrave.
 
howsertrading said:
100m
100m Relay
110m Hurdles
200m
400m
400m Relay
400m Hurdles
Long Jump
Click to expand...

I was good atg long Jump, 100m and 200m.

The problem is, After 200m i just couldnt compete due to the wrong body/muscle type and running style. And 110m Hurdles i was just crap at and almost blew out my knees when i tryed

A lot of Sprinters are the same as that and cant do very good in anything above 200m
 
Why Football, Basketball and Tennis? It seems like a lot of people want these to be removed because they have other official tournaments etc.

Why? Ask any of the competing athletes in any of these sports and I'm sure they would tell you how proud they feel and how much desire they have to win the gold medal for themselves and for their country. What a great oppotunity for youngsters to shine. Would there be more interest if GB had a team? There deffinately would be from the media.

Look at all the countries competing in the Basketball, they live for their sport, they send their best athletes who often earn millions to a country half way around the world. The teams could send youngsters, rookies etc but for the most part they don't. For what? money? They risk getting injuries just so they can represent their country at such a historical and prestigious stage.

Football, for the south american countries especially, the olympics means the world. Youngsters, some of the brightest talents get to showcase their skills on the world stage whereas they might not be able to at senior level.

Tennis. Did anyone actually watch the matches? The desire and emotion shown by both the men and women rivals anything seen in the grand slams. Djokovic was distraut after losing to Nadal and the elation displayed by Dementieva. Roger Federer who has won 12 grand slams, has now competed at 3 olympics going after a medal.

As long as enough of the worlds best have the desire to compete at this grand stage, why should their sport be removed?

And lets not forget prizemoney = £0.
 
Last edited:
NokkonWud said:
Whilst they are totally different, I believe athletes should have to be good at them all and do them all.
Click to expand...

Like a decathlon perchance?

drunkenmaster said:
Likewise, calling Redgrave better than Phelps is really only based on the fact he's English. Redgrave, 5 golds(was it, i can't remember) Phelps, 762 goals, but somehow he's not as good. To be honest, even though they are similar events he's still fitting in top performances crammed very very close together, which by all measures is really harder than competing in one or two events over several Olympics.
Click to expand...

Redgrave is a great Olympian through longevity and that he has battled with diabetes to win at the highest level for 20 odd years. Maybe he is better than Phelps, maybe not but you can't fairly and directly compare them because their sports are so massively different as to render the comparison almost meaningless.

drunkenmaster said:
AS for running, saying the 400/800 are "nothing" like the 100 and 200 is ridiculous, what you mean to say is, they do the exact same thing, but use different tactics and speed, hardly takes a genius to run a little slower for longer or years of training to learn to do. If you've got a good runners physique, muscle, power, you're 95% of the way there.
Click to expand...

Could you try it please? I'd like to see how it is done. If you look at runners for the various distances you will see that there is a general trend to the bodyshapes - the 100/200m runners are built like brick khazis with large muscles and lots of short twitch muscle fibres for speed, the 400/800m runners are a bit slimmer usually, slightly less muscled and with a greater proportion of the longer twitch muscle fibres for distance and stamina, 1500m runners are thinner still, built for distance with quite a lot of longer twitch fibres etc etc until you get to marathon runners who quite frequently look like they are barely a meal away from starvation and have huge amounts of longer twitch fibres.

Hurdling puts massively different demands on the body, while a good 110m hurdler might also be quick enough to be respectable at the 100m it is not a similar event by any stretch of the imagination.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom