I think the olympics lost its amateur ethos a while ago. If we removed all the sport where the competitor are completly amateur thay would be anything left.

I agree that any sport where Olympic Gold isn’t the highest honour should be ditched.

So football and tennis straight away, probably baseball and basketball too. Golf isn’t an olympic sport yet but its going to be introduced, this is just daft!

Road Cycling – hmm not sure. You can’t really compare winning a grand tour to winning a single race. The nearest equivalent is the world champ road race. Ask Spartacus he has won both, ask Cav if he would swap his rainbow stripes for an olympic gold.

As for points scoring I can see the er… point but who can deny that gymanstics is a great olympic discipline with a strong history

Singletrack have the right idea with their weekender. Keep all the usual sports in, but make it so each country can only enter 4 athletes, 2 men, 2 women who must enter every sport. Sir Chris Hoy, you are an epic cyclist, but I challenge you to excel in rhythmic ballet!

Golf isn’t an olympic sport yet but its going to be introduced, this is just daft!

Totally agree-the only way to make golf a viable Olympic sport is to ensure the field is made up of amateurs which would mean an Olympic medal would be up there with the highest amateur honours.

Olympic TKD. Club tkd I’ve seen looks right but the Olympic version looks like Skippy v Another Skippy at best. Just weird.

Generally I’d make it an amateurs only event. Don’t see how pro golf, tennis, footy, runners etc truly represent the Olympic ideal.

Thinking about the issue of sports where points are awarded perhaps the problem with synchronised swimming is that to the average observer it looks like the points are awarded purely for aesthetic reasons rather than technical reasons. So a gymnast or diver gets points for technical execution and this can be made less subjectives, you just need to codify what that is.

+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 – Member

Agree… 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