Butterfly and Breaststroke are out
You're smokin' something.
Sack off anything involving horses for starters. It’s not supposed to be a competition for lazy posh ****ers who can’t be arsed to do the hard work themselves.
I have a feeling that's exactly who it was meant for. Corinthian spirit and all that, don't you know!
Every serious film I've ever seen about the Olympics is about posh people. The comedy films about the Olympics are about foolish poor people trying to compete, the stupid, misguided idiots. (I'm basing this accurate data entirely on Chariots of Fire vs Eddie The Eagle and Cool Runnings!)
Sack off anything involving horses for starters. It’s not supposed to be a competition for lazy posh ****ers who can’t be arsed to do the hard work themselves.
Nah, I'd combine it with field athletics to make all more interesting, on the basis of opposing teams and to the death. Javelin obviously and the hammer would be effective against horses if somewhat inaccurate. Maybe discus we could discuss.
And perhaps keep in heading the shot perhaps as its own discipline?
anything that’s scored subjectively and/or judged is out.
I'd agree with that, but I'd like to see some of the subjectively scored sports adapted to be measurable, i.e. they bought in skateboarding, keep it but just make it a big air comp with a vert ramp, gold goes to whoever can get highest above the coping and still land, also add downhill skating, host nations need a big hill with a road down it, no regulation of the boards or wheels or anything, but competitors must be stood for their entire run. Do it in heats, I think that would be a great spectacle.
Not so bothered about DH MTB getting in the summer games or CX getting in the winter Olympics TBH, keep the road race as it lets host nations show off more of their country than the stadiums they've spunked money at, maybe cut back a bit on the number of velodrome based events? And definitely keep BMX.
As for just allowing PEDs, Nah I think it's all part of any nation's sporting prowess; how they manage not only to use PEDs, but also then evade detection (or not if you're Russia)...
I think we should have some relatable "everyman" type sports too though, pie and or hotdog eating? Get rid of Olympic boxing and replace it with drunken brawling; host nation to provide 25 units in a locally produced booze of their choice (bit of a promotional opportunity) to both contestants before they're put in a street environment and given the task to knocking their opponent unconscious with their fists and whatever comes to hand. To be refereed by an equally inebriated woman missing one shoe with a handbag full of her own sick.
What's the purpose of removing sports you dislike from the Olympics exactly? You don't have to watch them! I don't watch any of it!
What’s the purpose of removing sports you dislike from the Olympics exactly? You don’t have to watch them! I don’t watch any of it!
The IOC has created a mythos of what the Olympics is supposed to be about. People buy into that and then think, 'Hey, what have rich people forcing horses to dance got to do with these Olympic ideals you've sold me on?'
To get people to watch you have to sell them on something and if people then feel they've been mis-sold they are going to start complaining.
If people don't care they won't watch. If people do care they are going to have opinions.
Personally I've gone past caring so I most likely won't be watching anything either.
You don’t have to watch them! I don’t watch any of it!
True, there's always the radio. In the last ones given the sudden popularity of women's beach volleyball R4 did a sterling job of reporting on latest scores.
I think they should combine it with the upcoming reboot of Gladiators and have scrapping with massive cotton buds on top of big poles.
Am interested, but only if Jet is involved. She also liked a mountain bike, I seem to recall.
On second thoughts, let's just bin the Olympics out. It's just a yawn-fest for the most part.
Why have to Olympics at all, most sports have world championships so the Olympics are obsolete.
It's so that thousands of the worlds best predominantly super fit, young multisport participants can live like nuns or monks for 3 years, and then be thrown together in one student village where after a bit of vigorous activity that for most is reasonably well measured in seconds, they can release all that pent up sexual frustration in the best way that thousands of super toned 20 year olds know.
London 2012 distributed 150,000 condoms and Tinder/Grindr was almost permanently crashed due to overuse.
Brass band contests should be in.
Subjective judging, no go.
It's a while since I've been in a brass band contest, but often, there is a set piece, where every band plays the same piece of music. The judges award points based on how closely you stuck to the black dots on the music. In this day and age, this could easily be automated (perhaps it already has) so not subjective, and this should totally be in the olympics.
Anything with equipment needs to be standardised and randomly assigned to competitors. Track cycling needs cut down to sprint, longer distance individual TT and Onmium. No traditional team sports, golf or racquet sports. Bye bye anything subjective/judged. <br /><br />
All sports there have world champs or other big events. The Olympics should be about the pinnacles of each individual sport. Will never happen though, too much money involved.
All sports there have world champs or other big events. The Olympics should be about the pinnacles of each individual sport. Will never happen though, too much money involved.
I often wonder why a 'world championship' or 'world Cup' title is seemingly considered less prestigious than an olympic gold, especially when some competitors in certain events are very much not performing at the 'pinnacle' but get a spot anyway...
But I'd go the other way, why bother having an olympic medal if there's already a WC for a given sport? Let's only have niche sports which lack any other level of organised international competition in the Olympics. Unfortunately that would rule out Chess Boxing:
Each nation gets a Joker card. This gives them a 15% advantage to a single event. Additional cards can be bought for £5 million (in unmarked cash).
It's the stupid rules about building permanent structures, trying to get things like golf in there just to get money, it's all so corrupt, and it pulls all the funding from grassroots for the sale of a tiny handful of individuals at the top of their sport. Sod the Olympics.
Monty Python had the right idea
If triathlon is in, then hungry sharks should be in the lake, angry dogs should be in the running section and there should be at least one angry white van man on the course for the cycling...
To compensate, we can reduce the distances somewhat.
People do realise that every competitive sport has some form of subjective judging, right?
Until I started doing it, and under competition rules when indoors, with archery it isn’t just getting an arrow into the coloured rings between the black lines, if the edge of the arrow is actually touching the edge of the black line for the next scoring ring in, then that counts as the higher score, and in proper national or international competitions, magnifying glasses come into play. I’ve watched the scoring official spend several minutes studying where exactly an arrow is in relation to the dividing lines before making a decision!
As far as binning the Olympics and just having World Championships is concerned, nobody seems to have realised that the Olympics not only brings together lots of different countries, it’s bringing together a whole shitload of different disciplines - a Worlds only brings together teams of the same sports.
And then there’s the Paralympic Games; is anyone really going to stand up and say these athletes should be denied competition with other athletes from around the world?
Allow:
Running
Jumping
Unarmed hand-to-hand combat
Discus
Javelin
Pentathlon
Chariot racing
Horse racing
Disallow:
Everything else
Make the athletes compete naked.
Make the athletes compete naked
And for the first time in history the female sports attendance would far outstrip the males?
PETA won’t like it but, animal wrestling! Start small with a mid sized dog such as a collie and work up to the logical end point of grizzly or polar bear depending on if it is summer or winter. Also, no breaks between the rounds for the human competitors.
Start small with a mid sized dog such as a collie and work up to the logical end point of grizzly or polar bear depending on if it is summer or winter.
Start with an angry cat, work up to a cassowary.
Combining sports would both reduce the number of events, and bring a little more jeopardy to the endeavour.
So 800m and Pistol Shooting. Or Giant Slalom and Baseball. Ski Jumping and Javelin. You get the idea.
Failing that, reduce the whole shebang to 'whatever was included in a single episode of 1970s "Superstars"' and leave it at that.
I've long thought its criminal that XC (the running kind) isn't in the Winter Olympics.
It has a good sustainability angle (i.e. it can be run without fake snow, or on snow if there happens to be any), and much more importantly would open up the winter Olympics to more participation from many African nations.
The Olympics is bloated and corrupt, and the BBC coverage is annoyingly twee, but I still love it.
And I honestly think DH MTB would be a fantastic addition that would go down brilliantly with the public and do more than Warner Bros ever could to grow the audience.
4X would be awesome too. Remember how much everyone loved boardercross in the winter games?
You should check out kayak cross.
https://www.teamgb.com/article/what-is-extreme-canoe-slalom/4vrj5uprTXGRZsMr2hYOGH
Looks like great fun.
"Four boats are simultaneously pushed off a ramp placed more than two metres above the water, splashing onto the course as one.
From there, it’s quite literally a battle to the finish line with contact permitted unless it borders on the dangerous, all while having to navigate downstream and upstream buoys.
Each athlete must also complete a compulsory eskimo roll (more on that later) where they will have a short window of opportunity to roll their kayak and complete a 360-degree flip."
4X would be awesome too. Remember how much everyone loved boardercross in the winter games?
I still think the Short Track XC should be a 4X track that riders have to ride back up to the top of.
You should check out kayak cross.
That will be on my must-watch list cheers, love the kayaking anyway.
Back to other sports that could go in, I reckon gravel would make a decent addition. Assuming they could cover it like a road race.
Unarmed hand-to-hand combat
Nah, I would rather see duelling with pistols. You could have 2 standards, European where gentlemen wearing frilly shirts use traditional duelling pistols at 12 paces fire at each other when a lady drops a lace handkerchief, and cowboy style when drunks shoot at each other outside a saloon at midday with six shooters (bonus points for shooting your opponent in the back on the way to the "competitive arena")
Keep a representative event from every sport* but each country can only enter one contestant. The Olympics lasts a whole year with an event every 3 days.
We'd all watch that.
*I can see some issues but we'd work round them...
Dressage, boxing, gymnastics
Boxing and 'equestrian' events were part of the original ancient Olympic Games. Dressage has its origins in Ancient Greece too. Gymnastics was I think one of the first events in the modern Olympic era where women were allowed to compete. Whatever you may think of such events, the Olympics is the pinnacle event for those sports. Whereas football, baseball, skateboarding, cycle racing and golf all have other, more prestigious events. If you want to evoke the ancient games, then surely F1 motor racing is the evolution of chariot racing?
I quite like the Olympics for the sports themselves, but not the rampant commercialisation that has swallowed it all (see; football, baseball etc). It's the onetime we get to watch more obscure sports enjoying a global audience and exposure.
I think Kabaddi should be included in the Olympics.
Packraft racing - Le Mans start with inflation timed.
Several transitions with runs.
Serious suggestion, I'd really like a road cycling event where the winner is whoever spent the most time at the front, subject to finishing in the peleton. What would the strategy/tactics be like? 100 mile long bunch sprint would be great to watch.
Looks like great fun.
I watched some of the teams practicing for the world cup held at lee valley. Was quite entertaining.
I think releasing a few sharks would spice things up a bit as well.
Serious suggestion, I’d really like a road cycling event where the winner is whoever spent the most time at the front, subject to finishing in the peleton.
That's about as ridiculous a suggestion as my idea of a ball game played on a round or oval pitch with one single goal in the centre. I have yet to work out the shape of the goal, or which way it would be orientated, or in fact the number of teams on the pitch at any one time, but I've been told, in the pub a long time ago, that this is STUPID! By a football fan who thinks that the offside rule is really complicated. 😀
Strongman.
Great sport, but in it's current form is exactly what the "we should have an Olympics where people can take whatever drugs they like so we can see the peak of performance". It needs a high level clean competition.
Suits the Olympics as a spectacle as the event's aren't prescribed, so each host can use whatever they like as the apparatus to fit the city's history/theme.
It needs a high level clean competition.
Nah, other sports should adopt Strongman's level of honesty instead.
It's such a refreshing change being able to watch a competition without wondering if the winner is on PEDs or not.
It would also help kill the myth the IOC likes to promote that elite level sport is somehow healthy and not, in fact, severely damaging for most athletes physical and mental health.
Just replace it with a worldwide version of Takeshi’s Castle. Craig Charles to do the voiceover. Not like the updated version on Prime.
That or just make it entirely unprofessional. Anyone can enter any sports category with the one caveat that they can’t have any experience whatsoever in their chosen sport. It would be so entertaining
Nah, other sports should adopt Strongman’s level of honesty instead.
It's not honest though. It has all the usual anti-doping codes, just no testing. It's about as honest as cycling through the Riss and Armstrong years.
It should be the sport for tall people who didn't suit power/weight lifting. In reality it's just a question of who can afford the most / has the best response to Tren.
I am not about to start a furore by stating which sports shouldn't be in the Olympics, but I would like to see the following included:
Tiddlywinks
Kerbies
Spot
In. Spaffing hard earned tax payers cash on pointless purchases from a company run by your friends.
Out. The BBC paying literally anyone who can speak to go and comment on Olympic sport . And talk over the actual ex Olympians who are in the room . Chris Packham v Chris Hoy iirc . I could have done a better job having actually ridden pursuit on an olympic velodrome
It’s about as honest as cycling through the Riss and Armstrong years.
I don't think I've ever seen a strongman competitor call a press conference to tell the world they have never taken any form of PEDs.
Or to then go off and attempt to destroy the lives of anyone who says they might be telling porkies.
I really like strongman. For whatever reason it seems to have hit the sweetspot in popularity where the competitions are awesome but it's not so popular that any of the big governing bodies are going to show any interest in ruining helping govern it.
Possibly the fact that it is a given that every competitor is on a decent regime of PEDs helps keep the blazers away. Long may it continue.
Also, I wouldn't be so sure the current years are any cleaner than the Armstrong years. No matter how many stories get pumped out about how modern cyclists have figured out how to take in more calories and that is why the average speeds are so high.
So, as a start point, anything that’s scored subjectively and/or judged is out. Dressage, boxing, gymnastics figure skating, skateboarding, surfing and most martial arts all gone.
As I said in the other thread boxing is only judged if nobody gets knocked out . Perhaps they could allow it in but only every other Olympics to compensate for the need to sometimes rely on judges
Can't have Cx in the winter. It isn't a snow sport. Yes it may snow but it does that at footy matches.
