2008 Summer Olympics - Which sport shouldn't be in there?

I guess if you think the marathon is really stupid or you've got a personal vendetta against the Men's Butterfly you'll have to vote for the whole sport.

Baseball

Rowing

And your wish is the Olympic committee's desire, for it is out in 2012.

ooops, xp - baseball is out not rowing.

I find the cycling very dull.

Voted for tennis, but football came close

Rowing

-- The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Sunday, 3 August 2008 23:14

Lol class hatred.

Anyway, of this list, synchronised swimming and diving. Anything that involves some level of aesthetic judgement = NOT A SPORT.

You might as well put ballet or contemporary dance in there. However diving looks cool whereas sync swimming is just lame.

I enjoy the diving but they should scientificize it for the reasons as mentioned.

i'd vote sailing if the though of watching people sailing in hideous green algae this summer wasn't quite so attractive. i'd vote equestrian if dressage weren't quite so surreal and, well, wtf?!

there are so many sports here that should get the chop but my predictable vote has to go to synchronised swimming.

by the way, is there a male synchronised swimming event?

on the one hand i like tennis being in there cuz it's always nice to have another big, hyped tennis tournament, but really it's the 5th most important tournament of the year at best (unless you're a mentalist like elena dementieva) and completely fucks up the actual tennis calendar.

synchronised swimming is fun to watch! and divers are hott.

football obv should be out.

if you got rid of diving you would have to get rid of gymnastics on the same grounds. i actually find the gymnastics and the diving to be the highlights of the whole thing. basically the only sports other than the athlectics that i would watch.

Gymnastics should go as well.

Would have said "Rowing" out of spite to the tossers who infested my recent university life, until I started dating a rower. Now I've gotta be more understanding. Torn between the overhyped drug-farce that is Athletics, the abysmal parade of pomp that is Equestrianism, and the sheer educationless growth-stunting rape-hell of Gymnastics. Don't get me wrong, the hoops and balls thing (and the ribbons thing) is beautiful, artistic, meticulous, spectacular. But I can't get out of my head the shit they do to 'em.

you are so wrong. gymnastics is always reliably amazing. SVETLANA KHORKINA

xp

xps
I like watching the synchronised swimming too but I see your point. I find it diffiuclt to follow the scoring in the judo and wrestling as well (and probably the taekwondo but I can't ever remember watching that).

What do you think of the wrestling Dom?

Football probably shouldn't be there either.

rowing is a v excellent sport, btw. also none of you people who like FOOTBALL can claim any other sport's practitioners are wankers

Anyway, this poll is fundementally flawed. No dressage, no credibility.

I suppose it comes under equestrian but still...

maybe i will vote for baseball. they shouldn't have sports that basically only one country plays. what's the diff between baseball and softball? do we really need both? or either of them?

wtf no more Olympic beisbol? Baseball is a fine sport sirs.

if you got rid of the gymnastics then you'd have to get rid of the figure skating at the olympic games and if you are seriously willing to do that then you fail at being a good human

winter olympics i mean

http://www.ushmm.org/lcmedia/photo/lc/image/73/73495.jpg

ANYTHING THAT INVOLVES AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT = NOT A SPORT.

I can't bring myself to vote for Table Tennis

I'm slowly learning the wonder of rowing. She's slowly accepting cricket into her life. But these are early, touchy-feely stages.

Gymnastics is great to watch, I emphasise, but I have such moral difficulties with it as to be insurmountable.

the winter olympics should be got rid of in its entirety.

Table Tennis is mad awesome, wtf you on about Crutis :p

Figure skating = rub.

People going down hills very fast = brilliant.

Don't get me wrong, the hoops and balls thing (and the ribbons thing) is beautiful, artistic, meticulous, spectacular. But I can't get out of my head the shit they do to 'em.

the hoops and balls and ribbons thing (rhythmic gymnastics) isn't in the olympics.

god you all suck so much

xp to actually everyone

Anyway, this poll is fundementally flawed. No dressage, no credibility.

Yeah, it was too complicated to include every event in every sport so it does come under equestrian, sorry.

by the way, is there a male synchronised swimming event?

No! Shockingly.

o yes it is actually, my mistake, but it's not the same sport as gymnastics. it's kind of the synchonised swimming of gymnastics.

xposts to myself.

i can't comprehend how anyone could dislike figure skating? it's so intense. skiing obv also cool. i mean pretty much all individual sports are cool except, like, the speed walking one.

so is synchronised swimming the only sport in the olympics that only one gender takes part in?

they shouldn't have sports that basically only one country plays.

lol u have never been to japan cuba dominican republic colombia panama nicaragua canada korea

the hoops and balls and ribbons thing (rhythmic gymnastics) isn't in the olympics.

WHAT?! I've SEEN IT, man! SEEN IT!

actually casting my eye over the list again and bearing in mind the would/would not watch criterion, weightlifting probably loses heavily

I am struggling to think of any sport that could be gayer than all-male synchronised swimming and failing.

Handball is one of those games that only people who are self-consciously trying to get to the Olympics actually play, right? Why is it in the Olympics ahead of squash?

Sorry 'sport' in scare quotes.

1.21 of pure olympic table tennis fabulousness
Ah voila!

ok, here's my beef with gymnastics spelt out

TAKING young people from their HOMES aged about 10, SYSTEMATICALLY abusing them, forcing them to train 14 hours a day, denying them education, feeding them drugs to STUNT THEIR GROWTH, then brutally casting them out WITH NO APPLICABLE LIFE-SKILL aged, what, 22? Disgusting.

Squash's absence genuinely shocks me.

Opted for the horsey one over the weightlifting. pretty lol watching a guy making the 'shitting myself' expression in a leotard.

Carom billiards should also be an Olympic sport. It quite honestly wins all indoor games.

I might go Equestrianism after all that, lol

that's a problem with the soviet union not with gymnastics which is clearly one of the top 3 sports in the olympiad.

xxpost

TAKING young people from their HOMES aged about 10, SYSTEMATICALLY abusing them, forcing them to train 14 hours a day, denying them education, feeding them drugs to STUNT THEIR GROWTH, then brutally casting them out WITH NO APPLICABLE LIFE-SKILL aged, what, 22? Disgusting.

I dunno, David Cameron looks like he's going to do quite well out of it.

Field hockey

LOL Americans

jed otm re gymnastics.

gymnastics is the whole reason anybody watches olympics. who the fuck gives a shit about how fast some dude can run 0.0000004 mph faster than everyone else in history?!?!?!? EVERYBODY cares about when this 14 year old FAILED when she misses a grip and fucks up EVERYTHING that she had practiced for 12 years and stunned her growth for. THE DRAMA. amazing.

table tennis is amazing obv cos china wins every single medal there is.

sailing is maybe less of a spectator sport than fishing.

when will poker become an olympic sport?

Snooker ftO

top five olympics sport as spectator sport

1. gymnastics (except floor)
2. volleyball
3. diving
4. athletics (mainly pole vault)
5. badminton

top five games on olympics video games

1. diving
2. javelin
3. pole vault
4. archery
5. hurdles

Boxing is the best

sailing is maybe less of a spectator sport than fishing.

when will poker become an olympic sport?

-- ken c, Tuesday, August 5, 2008 5:43 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

u crazee x 2

no, best to watch =

swimming
boxing
pentathalon
badminton
volleyball

Weighlifting is a fun sport to watch!

that would have been my 6.

I was going to say this:

The team sports are all kind of not in the spirit of the thing, but football gets my vote because the national teams ALREADY compete every four years on a giant and well-publicized stage.

-- Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, August 4, 2008 2:15 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

so there.

I don't think I've ever watched an Olympics football match, which says it all really

me neither but then i don't think i've ever watched any football match

will there be a great britain football team?

will it be better/worse than england/scotland/wales/northern ireland?

will almunia be playing?!

aside from baseball, boxing and wrestling, they all suck.

stop being wrong

there will not be a GB football team

see the article entitled "Why is there no GB Olympic football team?"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/football/7529807.stm

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/kenjuggle3/arrrgh.jpg

Soon there might be no Great Britain to have a Great Britain football team

Ever since Barry Ferguson became London Mayor it's all gone tits-up

BMX
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Why because it's new.

I'm going to try and avoid anything Olympics-related.

Live images to be delayed worldwide so they can cut out human rights protesters. The IOC has agreed to this.

so you're protesting that huh

Through associations with my mother, badminton = bellringing, basket weaving, pottery g(l)azing, and general middle-class female geekery. Out out out.

We need an official 2008 Summer Olympics thread.

Softball. Not enough interest worldwide.

Forgetting the lesbian market there.

what is it with you guys ?/ u are willing to spend money showing sports such as hand ball but no equestrian events !! my partner and two daughters arent pleased at all - have u any idea how many people in this country ride horses ?? a lot more then play hand ball i would suggest , thanks very much !!

gymnastics is great because we can prove we are better than all those socialist countries that train gymnasts since they were born. oh yeah

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Athletics 3

Aren't those like the only sports that should be in the olympics?

YES! 9 other people call bullshit on baseball.

Typical domination from the modern pentathlon lobby.

wtf at athletics and badminton polling so high, assume the former is down to prankster votes but what do people have against the latter??

yeah for serious, what sort of fkn madpeople be votin' for badminton

those who vote for gymnastics would deny us this simple pleasure: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7JkDjYp2Jok

Similarly, no athletics, no guy getting hit in the knackers by a pole.

Synchronised swimming seems to offer less opportunity for that sort of painful mishap than almost any other sport I think.

yeah, not enough running on the side, bombing or heavy petting for my taste.

Baseball as an olympics sport, maybe not, but baseball is probably a more international sport than say, cricket (controversial opinion) as far as it being widely popular in more non-English speaking countries, so it'd be nice to have some kind-of actual world championship.

you people deserve this pantywaist nationalist orgy.

also wtf is "athletics" except ALL SPORTS?

(except that ice dancing / figure skating bullshit in the winter games that isn't even sports)

You're right, of course, but generally, "athletics" = "track and field"

Baseball as an olympics sport, maybe not, but baseball is probably a more international sport than say, cricket (controversial opinion) as far as it being widely popular in more non-English speaking countries

Huh? What's the population of India again?

By the way, that synchronised diving thing sucks

English is an official language of India, hence English-speaking. It's not like English is an official language of Venezuela, Cuba, or Japan.

By the way, that synchronised diving thing sucks

Those two Chinese girls today were pretty amazing though. A lot better than the men.

Baseball as an olympics sport, maybe not, but baseball is probably a more international sport than say, cricket (controversial opinion) as far as it being widely popular in more non-English speaking countries, so it'd be nice to have some kind-of actual world championship.

-- burt_stanton, Monday, August 11, 2008 7:17 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

I don't know why the language thing is important but they have the World Baseball Classic.