Quote:
Originally Posted by craigwd
I just don't understand this argument and think people just use it as a knock against sports they don't like. Sorry if that's not the case here.
The athletes athletes being rated on how well they perform specific feats of athleticism, how is that not a sport? If you only count "ball crosses the line" activities as sports you are severely limiting yourself to a handful of activities.
So you would really just dismiss all freestyle skiing including aerials and moguls, most snow boarding, ski jumping, boxing, diving and gymnastics as non-sports and take those athletes out of the Olympic Games? I wholeheartedly disagree.
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Craig...there have been incidents of judges trading scoring favors...this sort of politics invalidates any results, imo, and the history of the Olympics is rife with this kind of corruption. So, no, non-objectively quantifiable exhibitions are hard for me to call "sports." Do they require athleticism? Yes. But, corrupt judging aside, judged events are too subject to judges interpretations of perfection.
Edit: as for Boxing, it IS quantifiable, if you count, with some accuracy, blows landed. Moreover, it, at least, is one of the most traditional of Olympic events, dating back to Homeric times.