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+1 for binning sports which need judges and interpretation.
Get rid of the amateur rules for sports like football and have whoever you want in the team.
Reduce the field by setting harder qualifying criteria so those people with absolutely no chance of winning can't enter.
Get rid of most of the swimming events.
Olympic TKD. Club tkd I've seen looks right but the Olympic version looks like Skippy v Another Skippy at best. Just weird.
Do you mean the difference between WTF (Olympic) and ITF (not Olympic)? IMO ITF is vastly superior.
First of all, there's no reason why Olympians should be amateurs - the original ancient Greek athletes weren't.
Get rid of most of the running. All those distances, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1600m, 5km, 10km, Marathon... Good grief. Swimming is the same, but with different strokes too - there must be more medals on offer than competitors.
Never understood why there's Judo and wrestling, should just be wrestling - learn it in a judo school if you like.
Taekwondo? Do me a lemon, it was embarrassing.
BMX racing actually seems a good fit, equipment is pretty simple and it combines explosive sprinting with guts, aggression, and technique.
And bring back pankration.
I despair at the hype of the Olympics, a collection of the most random sports as dictated by a panel of blazer wearing duffers who are on a par with FIFA re corruption. Get it back to athletics and swimming, nothing else.
How the current position has evolved is a complete mystery to me.
An example – Windsurfing, for years they insisted on a one design format (identical kit like in the sailing) which is fine but the equipment specified was light years out of date, imagine if the mountain biking insisted on a set bike with 14 gears fully rigid heavy steel frame with 1.8 tyres and v brakes!
They very slowly started to bring it up to date but it was and remains completely removed from what competitive windsurfing is all about. And the last I heard it was going to get binned to be replaced by kite surfing. Madness the whole episode!
Get it back to athletics and swimming, nothing else.
Why?
Is that where the modern Olympics started...?
Take out anything an acient Greek didn't do.
Keirin - A cycle 'event' that involves a motorbike ffs!.
The british aren't winging about it because we might win it.
Keirin was admitted into the Olympics in December 1996.[1] A BBC News investigation, reported in July 2008, found evidence that following the sport's admission into the Olympics, the Union Cycliste Internationale required (in writing) that the Japan Keirin Association support UCI projects in "material terms"; over a period of time the association subsequently gave three million dollars to UCI in consideration of "the excellent relationship the UCI has with representatives of the Olympic movement." Four members of the governing body were subsequently arrested in Tokyo.[1]
Bruce Wee - possibly, the Club one involves being able to punch - shock horror - my kids did that and we laughed out loud at the olympic version involving kicking only. Whoever thought that was a good idea? Someone with short arms perhaps?...
Thank you OP ... STW at its best...
"Get rid of most of the swimming events. "
"Get rid of most of the running. All those distances, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1600m, 5km, 10km, Marathon"
lol
Its very rare to win more than 2 individual events on the athletics track so I think they have the balance about right there but when one swimmer can win 5 individual events it just shows they are too similar.
It has to be beach volleyball doesn't it? It is just volleyball in bikinis.
First pass, is the Olympics the pinnacle of the sport? If no them remove it.
Second pass, is the sport in anyway judged and/or open to interpretation? If yes,remove it.
Easy.
Get rid of most of the running. All those distances, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1600m, 5km, 10km, Marathon
Just have one race over the marathon distance but take the times at 100m, 200m, 400m etc - then award medals for those distances but only to those who complete the whole marathon.
Second pass, is the sport in anyway judged and/or open to interpretation? If yes,remove it.
So, boxing will be out as well as various track and field events such as shot put?
Bring back some of the sports they used to have, like the 100m Freestyle for Sailors, or the 12 hour cycle race. 100Km cycle track race sounds fun as well.
R05ey - I'll agree to leaving swimming events in if you agree to the introduction of their running equivalents, namely skipping, running backwards and hopping. All to running what breast stroke, back stroke and butterfly are to front crawl - namely, a shitter version of the same thing.
I reckon Tug o War should replace it.
Golf isn't an olympic sport yet but its going to be introduced, this is just daft!
Tug of war was in the 1900 games and golf was in the 1904 games.
Anything where it's one-on-one (teams or individuals) with a quarter final - semi final - gold medal final /bronze medal final structure because it's fundamentally unfair - the winners of the silver and bronze medals play exactly the same number of games / matches and both lose one of them, so the allocation of silver to one and bronze to another is effectively arbitrary.
The sports could stay, but they should do it as a league where everyone plays everyone else.
Get rid of anything the Greeks didn't do
By all accounts that wasn't very much. Randy bunch the ancient Greeks.
Any sport where an Olympic gold is not considered the greatest achievement possible.
This. Simples.
Get it back to athletics and swimming, nothing else.
and town planning
and dramatic works
and chamber music
Any sport where an Olympic gold is not considered the greatest achievement possible.
How then would one introduce new events?
Any sport where an Olympic gold is not considered the greatest achievement possible.
So, for example; if anyone beat the 100m record while not at the olympics, the 100m would be removed from the olympics - until the existing record was once again surpassed at the olympics.
It'd certainly whittle down the number of events over time.
Snowboarding.
Makes a mockery of doping controls.
I'd rather have stoned snowboarders than Olympic snowboarders.
So, for example; if anyone beat the 100m record while not at the olympics, the 100m would be removed from the olympics - until the existing record was once again surpassed at the olympics.
Any chance of saying that in a way that makes sense?
Well, the last line (unquoted) certainly clarifies it
Agree with anything that needs to be judged and any that Olympics is not highest pinnacle. That's also remove tennis.
Why sailing out? The one design boats used are cheaper than a high end bike to buy... They alsO have a huge amature following in a first past the post style do seems to fit?
Bring back gliding as well. Now there's the ultimate non spectator sport!!
Agree with anything that needs to be judged and any that Olympics is not highest pinnacle. That's also remove tennis.
No Boxing??
Only if they fight till one surrenders or is knocked out. Gypsy rules!
Why sailing out?
Agree... perceived an expensive sport yet cheaper than a decent mtb.
So, for example; if anyone beat the 100m record while not at the olympics, the 100m would be removed from the olympics - until the existing record was once again surpassed at the olympics.
That's just stupid.
Take football, the World Cup is the pinnacle, not the Olympics, so it shouldn't be included.
Tennis: any of the Grand Slams are held in higher regard.
Whilst not really following either sport I couldn't tell you the current or any previous Olympic champion. I can tell you the football World Cup holders and name a number of the tennis greats.
Boxing? Bit of a different sport frankly isn't it, so not sure about that.
Cycling? Track yes, MTB... maybe, road... probably not, grand; tour/World Champs victories arguably more prestigious, BMX... dunno.
Athletics? Yes
Swimming? Yes
Etc.
Et merde, now I am even agreeing with njee... What have I done
Why sailing out?
elzorillo - MemberAgree... perceived an expensive sport yet cheaper than a decent mtb.
+1
I bought a Laser at 15 for £550, sold it 3 years later for £450 having done no more than replace the tiller extension, mainsheet, toestrap and done a fair bit of filling/sanding to get it smooth underneath. Club fee's varied from £20 (coastal, round the lobsterpots style race series) to £100 (inland on a reservoir that had to rented).
Ok at the top end boats can be expensive, but day to day I broke or wore out very little, if I was trying to be competitive then it might have cost me £400 for a new sail after 3 years, but I was getting fair results with a 4 season old one so dividing that over 5 years it's still cheaper than suspension servicing.
Even yacht raceing is cheep if you make it, buy something like a GEM (if you want fast and scary), can be bought for around/under £5k, takes a crew of 3 so split that between some m8's and it's a fraction of the cost of a half decent MTB.
Still Olympics isn't the pinnacle of sailing, America's cup is
Much as I dislike boxing as a sport, it's often our only chance of a medal most Olympics so I'm happy to leave that in. 🙂 Actually, there's a fantastic tradition of boxing in the limpics, so I really don't see how it could be removed.
Definitely football would be first to go for me - followed by tennis.
Hopefully golf will never be in there.
I'd have also added beach volleyball but then my mate rang me today to say he had a spare ticket so I'm happy for it to have one more shot. 
Athletics and swimming. Dullest sports going. In fact, barley even sports - just robots who've perfected a sequence of moves.
Modern Pentathlon - there can't be more than 50 people in the whole world who do this.
juan - simply not true. Americas cup is an ego trip for very rich people. Dinghy sailing - Olympics is the one everybody wants.
Teef - bigger than you may think although not a lot of non semi pro + participation (ie it's not what people do at the weekend at club level for a bit of a laugh)
Still Olympics isn't the pinnacle of sailing, America's cup is
That is like comparing road cycling and bmx- it's still a bike, but it's not the same sport. The Olympics is the pinnacle of dinghy sailing.
For me, most of it should be in if it requires athleticism, even if running and swimming bore me to death, but synchro swimming doesn't make sense and golf is not a sport, so shouldn't be allowed in- where do you stop if you go down that line? Snooker?
Athletics and swimming. Dullest sports going. In fact, barley even sports - just robots who've perfected a sequence of moves.
sounds like you are describing cycling to me
Yep, road cycling, certainly. Bit more variation to mtb.
Hopscotch is my pet hate. Just because we had that Jonathan Edwards and now we've got Philips Idowu who aren't good enough at long jump, we're all supposed to get excited by it.
"golf is not a sport, so shouldn't be allowed in- where do you stop if you go down that line? Snooker"
A pretty good line to draw would be this definition of a sport.
A sport is only a sport if you need specialized footwear to play.
So sorry that means golf is a sport... but agreed shouldn’t be as it’s in not the pinnacle
Snooker/darts/shooting/archery you can do in your everyday shoes or indeed in your slippers…. So never in or should be thrown out.
"if running and swimming bore me to death,"
So you don't like racing?
So MTB just has more sequences of moves to perfect then?
not sure you are even correct i would imagine a road biker has to do all the things a MTB has
Shift weight, steer round corners have some technique, balance,braking etc - have you seen cobbles in the wet?
Can you think of a sport where you can be a world beater and yet not proficient at the techniques[sequence of moves]?
Ro5ey - swimming is not a sport as it violates your shoes rule
TBH you could do all sports without changing your shoes but just worse...and you you just made ten pin Bowling and tap dancing sports