A neat article on sport popularity vs Medals available.
Shooting and fighting - not very popular
I wonder how much those things vary. For example soccer is not nearly as popular in Asia or anywhere around those timezones, so how much did that show in ratings when the olympics were in Beijing?
Yeah, the stupid number of medals available in swimming is a quadrennial rant for me. The increasing trend towards athletes that complete in multiple disciplines at an elite level further shows that these are not actually different disciplines, but variations on the same discipline. The number of events has already doubled just from 1956 to today, from 7 to 17 on the men's side. And other than the 10k marathon, I fail to see what any of them add, beyond more medals, which serve only to force countries to dedicate more resources to swimming and line the pockets of the programs at the expense of less medal-rich sports.
The IOC should impose some version of the following simple rules for sports federations:
For each discipline (with a discipline defined as a group of sports with distinct skills or styles of competition that cannot be easily applied to other sports outside that discipline), there may be a maximum of:
Team sports: 1 event for men, 1 event for women (includes relay or team forms of otherwise solo sports).
Solo sports: 1 to 6 events per gender. Different sports within a discipline must be either: distinct classes (such as weight classes) where athletes cannot compete in multiple classes, or distinct events where only the most exceptional athletes can medal across events.
Pairs/quad events can be classified as either solo or team, at the discretion of the federation, but cannot exceed the limits of the discipline and need to be treated the same throughout the federation.
Absolute maximum is 14 events per discipline. (6 solo categories, 1 team category per gender). Obviously this hurts swimming more than any other sport, but there are others that have too many classes or events and would also be affected. Boxing, weightlifting, Judo, all need to reduce the number of classes. Athletics: once sorted into disciplines, probably lose a distance or two in the track side of it. Rowing, canoeing, artistic gymnastics also have too many events under this model.
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The Olympics are fun. I don't understand why anyone would want to eliminate events from something this extravagantly awesome.
I agree. Though I don't care if I see anymore tennis matches between the same players you see every weekend anyway. I love all the weird sports you never get to watch. I wouldn't scrap any of them.
I gotta say though it is weird seeing De Rozen and Lowry playing for the USA. They seem like our guys.
I love all the weird sports you never get to watch.
Weird sports like swimming, swimming and more swimming and diving and gymnastics and more gymnastics and then some gymnastics and boxing and some boxing.
The ridiculous number of events in the "big" sports actually cuts down the TV time for those things you actually couldn't see otherwise.
I think we should just have two versions of every event instead, the clean athlete version and the roid monster version. Would love to see how fast some of the swimmers and rowers and runners could do totally roided up instead of only kind of roided up.
I would really like to see North American Football introduced as an Olympic sport. Canada would be guaranteed of a Silver medal each year.
The hell we would, it would be NFL rules not CFL so that would put most of our kids at a disadvantage, on top of that the CFL is already playing, they're not about to lose a months worth of revenue every four years for an event that doesn't even showcase their sport. It'd be a bunch of kids from the CISL playing against the second best rugby players Australia New Zealand etc have to offer, I doubt they'd be able to keep up.
I wonder how much those things vary. For example soccer is not nearly as popular in Asia or anywhere around those timezones, so how much did that show in ratings when the olympics were in Beijing?
Soccer is very popular in Asia (truly the only sport popular world wide except in Canada and the US). In China, soccer is in the top 3 among spectator sports with basketball and badminton.
Do you watch much synchronized diving in between the Olympics?
To me that proves his point. You get to see a bunch of weird or interesting sports you don't see every weekend. Synchro diving isn't something I've ever watched outside of The Olympics but I did watch it.
I was excited to see a few archery highlights as I think that's cool. Trampoline wouldn't normally excite me but watching them bounce 3 stories in the air and do a bunch of flips is impressive. The pure strength of the guys on the rings in gymnastics is crazy as is the fact girls can do flips on top of a beam we'd have trouble walking down. I probably won't watch swimming events until probably Tokyo but I watched nearly all of it this week.
I do agree they don't show enough field events. I want to see Javelin, discus, and hammer throw. Those are fun to watch for how far they launch them. Also some of the weird sports need more coverage...or I need to a better job finding them.
Soccer is very popular in Asia (truly the only sport popular world wide except in Canada and the US). In China, soccer is in the top 3 among spectator sports with basketball and badminton.
Huh, that seems weird. I mean why aren't they better at it then? With that population they should be producing a ton of great soccer players then.
A neat article on sport popularity vs Medals available.
Shooting and fighting - not very popular
Good article. The real problem isn't that there are too many events -- its that they are not properly weighted. Media obsesses over medal counts, but not all medals are equal.
Big team sports have much more prestige than smaller events but isn't reflected in these 'standings'. Even more unfair if countries are paying athletes on medal counts.
Good article. The real problem isn't that there are too many events -- its that they are not properly weighted. Media obsesses over medal counts, but not all medals are equal.
Big team sports have much more prestige than smaller events but isn't reflected in these 'standings'. Even more unfair if countries are paying athletes on medal counts.
I think team sports should be credited with the number of players on the team. A Rugby 7s team for instance should be credited with 7 medals in the standings.
I think team sports should be credited with the number of players on the team. A Rugby 7s team for instance should be credited with 7 medals in the standings.
It should be that but sliding depending on the medal for team sports! Bronze x1, silver x2, gold x3.
So for Canada winning gold in hockey we would get 69 gold medals.
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