This issue really evokes my emotions, because of how much I love sports. I think sports are a vitally important part of the human experience. I guess dance is, too, but we’re not talking about dance, in and of itself.
Dance isn’t a sport. Period. Ever. Nobody can change my mind about this. Dance is potentially expressive, beautiful, socially useful, entertaining, etc. But it IS NOT A FUCKING SPORT.
Only sports should be in the goddamned Olympics, and shoving non-sports into the mix is shameful and disgusting. It’s a wad of spit in the face of every great athlete who has ever taken the field. It’s a disgrace to the Ancient Greek tradition that the Olympics are attempting to continue.
I don’t give a fuck that there are already competitions for breakdancing. Or ballroom dancing. People can hold competitions for whatever they want. I actually think competitions shouldn’t be held for entirely subjective and artistic activities, but people can do whatever the fuck they want.
But not in the fucking Olympics. This shit makes me sick.
And before you start pointing out the other subjective, judged events that are already in the Olympics: THEY SHOULD ALL BE REMOVED, TOO. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. NONE OF THEM BELONG.
No more gymnastics (rhythmic or otherwise). No more figure skating and ice dancing. No more skateboarding. No more surfing. No more synchronized swimming. No more freestyle skiing. No more diving. No more BMX. No more ANYTHING that requires judging.
You might browbeat me into admitting that some of those subjectively judged activities are sports, but you will never convince me that they belong in the Olympics.
Olympic sports should be restricted to those which are determined by means of a clock, a measuring tape, the accumulation of OBJECTIVELY scored points, or a physical beating.
Even some of those should be on the chopping block. Some of the points-scoring events are too subjective. If a sport relies too much on fallible human judging, it should be excluded.
The vast majority of the events should be arbitrated only by the cold, merciless, absolute judgment of the clock or the measuring tape. Therein lies the truest purity of sport.
Honestly, the best thing to do would be to reset everything to the REAL tradition of the Olympics. Almost nothing, other than running, jumping, and fighting. With an absolute minimum of rules to get in the way, and all the athletes competing in the nude. Just sandals on their feet. No space-age materials to help anyone. Nothing for anyone to hide. Just human muscle and determination, on display at the greatest possible level.
But it’s all a forlorn dream. Instead, we have to have our stomachs turned, as a bunch of revolting little shitheads wobble and headspin.
The ancient Olympians are going to be spinning in their fucking graves.
EDIT: YES, I AM AWARE THAT THE FIRST COUPLE MODERN OLYMPICS FEATURED NON-SPORT ACTIVITIES, LIKE SCULPTURE AND PAINTING. THAT DOESN’T CHANGE MY VIEW. INCLUDING ART IN THE MODERN OLYMPICS WAS A RIDICULOUS MISTAKE. JUST BECAUSE IT WAS DONE BEFORE DOESN’T MEAN IT SHOULD BE DONE NOW.
Gymnastics, high diving, etc. have a very strict scoring system as well. There’s a very objective way to score how things are done, it just looks subjective to people who weren’t involved in those sports.
Most sports look weird and subjective if you were unfamiliar with the rules, but after many decades, are extremely codified and much more objective than they appear.
Anyone that wants things to be simpler or more pure probably don’t understand the reasoning and history behind the rules.
That being said, like any rule set, a lot can be gained from starting from scratch. You just need to have a deep understanding of the way things are in the first place, otherwise you’d be making a lot of the same mistakes.
If figure skating was objective then the 2002 judging scandal couldn’t have happened.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Winter_Olympics_figure_skating_scandal
Strict, yes, but not objective.
No one is checking the height and diameter of the splash a high diver makes when she enters the water, or the exact angle a figure skater’s foot makes when he lands a triple lutz, or what the decibel level is for a cheerleading team. All of those are judged based on years of observation, but at the end of the day it’s still people’s opinions of the performance.
If you hit a hole-in-one on a par 4, everyone agrees your score is -4. If you do a floor mat routine, one judge might think it was absolutely perfect and give you a 10 and one judge might think it was sloppy and give you an 8. And you can’t argue one was right and the other wasn’t, because it still comes down to the opinion of the judges.