Olympic Sports that should not be

Raybon Kan has a funny but largely correct column of what sports should not be in the Olympics:

Soccer. The Olympics should be the pinnacle of achievement. If not, get out. For tennis, it’s a Grand Slam. For basketball, it’s an NBA championship. For football, the World Cup. In the Olympics, football is a patronising under-23 tournament. If we wanted to see under-age competitors, we’d watch gymnastics.

I could not agree more here. If winning the gold medal is not the most aspired for achievement in that sport, then don’t have it in the Olympics.

Hockey. This is the best example of a sport really being improved by ice. Handball. As far as I can tell, handball is football with everyone cheating. Or it’s waterpolo without the water. If we must have a sport for people without skills, I’d rather see dodgeball, or even tag.

Ice Hockey is great! I don’t mind hockey at the Olympics but generally think team sports are a bad match, unless it is very small teams such as relays or rowing where no one is potentially a spare part.

Dodgeball would be a great Olypmic sport 🙂

Rhythmic gymnastics. The proper place for this is the opening ceremony. Equestrian. I don’t mean to be speciesist but let’s let the Olympics be about humans. Horses, giddy up. You’re outta here. The pinnacle of achievement for a horse is the Triple Crown or Melbourne Cup. Besides, any horse that plaits its own hair is obviously taking some serious stimulants.

If horses are in, they might as well include dogs catching frisbees, or dolphins in the swimming. There’s a reason Mark Todd can compete in this many Olympics: the horses do the work. Is it a summer sport if you can compete at the highest level, wearing that many layers of formal clothing, like the admiral of a brass band? I’m sure there’s a Siegfried and Roy/Dr Doolittle ingenuity to training a horse to be this clever. But do it in Vegas, not the Olympics.

I expect Raybon will receive many outraged missives from horse riders on this!

And how do you think poor countries feel when they see equestrian? The horses eat better than most of their own citizens/refugees/insurgents. Entire developing continents probably watch equestrian because it looks yummy.

Beach volleyball. I feel like I’m watching a bad teenage movie set at the beach. And I am quite a perv. Yet, even as a perv, I have yet to be motivated to watch beach volleyball any longer than it takes to change the channel. The only good thing you can say about beach volleyball is that it positively influenced what women wear in the high jump and pole vault.

Heh indeed.

Whitewater kayaking. Slalom skiing minus the excitement.

Walking. No appeal, no question. Gone. Walking is a bunch of people urgently looking for the toilet, wanting to hide the fact they’re busting. It wouldn’t even be good sped up, with music from Benny Hill. And if a judge can keep pace with a competitor, while studying their feet, and holding a flag, the competitor is not doing anything special. When I get out of the car, and walk to a cafe, no onlooker would say I am making this transition in the spirit of the Olympics. When you do your grocery shopping, you are not performing an Olympic sport, with the extra challenge of weights.

This is also bound to get him many outraged letters!