Being a resident in China it’s difficult to avoid Olympic hype. I find “The Games” hard to reconcile with the things I believe are important in this world. But as to not alienate myself too much from the Olympic adoring world I will only state the following two points (which are inflammatory enough) and then move on to isolate a number of events that are easy targets to mock.
“The Olympics are a self indulgent Romanesque event where we get to pretend the world is about the latest track suit fashion.” AG Duirs
“The Olympics are a gathering of obsessive compulsive individuals who claim to be the best in the world, but actually live a highly unbalanced lifestyle at the expense of important social, psychological, and spiritual needs.”
In the 2008 Olympics there will be 28 sports. Each of the 28 sports has multiple events adding up to 302 events in all. Bizarrely enough I’m writing this with 302 days to go before opening ceremony. Spooky…
Most sports have developed from a practical life skill. Like the person who runs fastest generally doesn’t get eaten by the tiger; or the person who throws the spear (javelin) the best gets to kill the tiger; and so it goes on… But every now and then a sport like shot put develops, or equestrian dressage (dancing horses).
So below is a limited list of sports that I have collected. To be honest I would prefer them gone but they could be quite entertaining if they were combined. Try combining some and outline what they would look like and send it to “All Things Change” in a comment. Also feel free to add any sports you feel I have been remiss in not including.
1 Synchronized swimming
2 Butterfly (swimming)
3 Shot put
4 Walking
5 Discus
6 Triple jump
7 Equestrian dressage
8 Rhythmic gymnastics
9 Parallel bars
A sport like shooting has far too many events and I find boxing and wrestling a little too violent, but they are fun if you combined them with some of the above events.
October 16th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Diving would be greatly improved if there was an event for bombies. Scoring should be based on a combination of vertical splash and technique - with both 1m and 3m springboards used.
The most stupid of all the Olympic Sports - walking.
October 26th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Hey Mate - Shot-put and Discus, big bits of metal hurt - they really do. Could be why they are Olympic sports developed from killing people. Important skills if you are claiming to be the best in the world and someone is better than you!
I like the combination the discus/shot-put and triple jump, parallel bars, walking as a kind of a decathlon where you take aim for half the events.
Some winter sports must be deserving of a serve too.
Good to see the great AG Duirs getting internet quotes!!