I've been saying for a while now that the only sports allowed at the Olympics should be those sports for which the highest honour or achievement is the Olympic Gold medal. Therefore sports such as athletics, swimming, judo, canoeing, gymnastics should be Olympic Sports. Sports such as football and tennis should not. In football, the World Cup is the highest achievement. In tennis, it is the four majors of Wimbledon, French Open, US Open and Australian Open.
Steve Cram wrote about this today. I share his concerns.
1 comment:
I agree in principle, but I foresee a number of problems in trying to enforce it. Namely- who gets to decide what the highest honour in a particular sport is? And what if that changes over time? And what about sports that have never been in the olympics - how can one make a comparison for what would be the higher honour should they be introduced? Now, in the case of football I accept this is nit-picking, but many disciplines are not so clear cut. Boxing, for example - the biggest 'honour' is in the world title one-off fights, but as an integral competition the olympics is the highest award. This also highlights the varying importance of disciplines in different nations - perhaps Americans (as in USA-ians) aren't that bothered about the olympic boxing but for Cuba it is their flagship event. And road cycling is a tricky one as well - most road racers would probably choose to be World Champion rather than Olympic champion, but in the specific case of London 2012 the road race is a hugely anticipated event - first medal event and massive chance for a first British gold with Cavendish. But in Brazil 2016 it is hugely unlikely there will be a Brazilian winner and the event will not carry the same anticipation. Thus different disciplines take on different levels of importance depending on which olypmics they are in.
Just some thoughts.
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