Community Stories

The Olympics -What olympic sporting event is your favourite?

Dsloan
Posts
3,615
Likes
24,370
I too giggled at the early clips of breaking ... But it got much more impressive:


I also finally went back and watched the opening ceremony and I really liked it. Sure, it was bananas at some points, but I thought it was more fun and joyful than most of recent ceremonies I could remember.

And, c'mon, Gojira headlining an artful reenactment of regicide? What's not to love?

Screenshot_20240812-173827.png


Seriously, how is LA gonna top that?
 
TIMElyBehaviour
Posts
738
Likes
1,322
Archer Archer
There have been plenty of Olympic sports that are not "traditional" sports. Many sports have come and gone in the modern Olympics, like rope climbing, tug of war, pistol duels using wax bullets, etc. How about poetry? That was among 5 artistic events first held at the 1912 Olympics - dubbed The Pentathlon of the Muses, which were contested for close to 40 years before being dropped.

Maybe we should be more traditional and only have events that were in the original ancient Olympics then? If so, then bring on the mule cart and chariot racing, along with foot races with men dressed in battle armor and carrying shields. And don't forget the Harold and Trumpeting contest.

Maybe to be traditional we should only allow Greeks to compete, as the original games did. Should we be doing all this only in praise of Zeus?

It seems many see the Olympics as some rigid formula that if anything is added that doesn't meet that formula, it somehow isn't right. The truth is very different - the Olympics started out with 1 event - a foot race. It expanded over time just like the modern Olympics have. Change is inevitable if the event is to survive, and not all sports will remain. Breaking has already been dropped for LA, so we'll have to see if it comes back - some sports do that, such a baseball/softball.
I’m all good to have athletes running in armour and sporting shields and swords, it can really be a marathon then. We can have the Greeks vs Iraq to make it authentic.

I have a lot of respect for you Archer but I am entitled to voice an opinion even if it doesn’t align with your views.

yep I prefer the more traditional sports, when I think of the olympics sports like swimming, cycling, weightlifting, track and field all come to mind first. Breakdancing to me borders on making a mockery of an event that athletes world wide train for. To me having breakdancing in it takes away from the games.

Again, one man’s opinion.
 
Archer
Posts
29,671
Likes
76,828
Peemacgee Peemacgee
Unfortunately, this might juts be the case.

As I understand it, one of the main reasons that WB is struggling to replace the IBA is that Gazprom provide large purses for fights under the IBA. (and I'm sure other financial support too)
Unless WB can match these purses then individual countries may not get on board with WB.

The IOC could nominate WB as the governing body but if WB doesn't have a large number of NFs on board, boxing could be a hollowed out sport as far as the Olympics are concerned.

At the moment Russia would happily put a stick in the spokes of the IOC and take messed up Olympic boxing as a win.

While that's true, my guess would be that countries would fall in line. If they didn't it would likely have little to do with prize money, but Russian influence in that specific country.

I would go so far as to say athletes will jump ship to countries that do sign on, in order to get to the Olympics. It happens all the time when they feel that the sport system in their country doesn't provide enough for them.

When it comes to getting into the Olympics in a sport you have trained your whole life for, athletes will sue, flip countries, etc. so they are not denied their rightful place. As someone who ran the high performance sport program for archery in Canada, I have been involved in such disputes before in that role - it can get ugly really fast.
 
Archer
Posts
29,671
Likes
76,828
TIMElyBehaviour TIMElyBehaviour
I have a lot of respect for you Archer but I am entitled to voice an opinion even if it doesn’t align with your views.

Did I indicate otherwise? It's just a discussion mate and I'm just trying to understand where you are coming from. If you don't want to debate it, that's fine, just state your views and I'm good with that.

Many people share the view that you do and I encounter it often, but it seems to me if more people understood the history of the Olympics that view might change. The thing is, many young people don't care a whole lot about the traditional sports, so if you want the Olympics to survive and thrive (I do, but maybe you feel differently), they are going to have to try new things. Just like the winter Olympics had to include a ton of sports because of the winter X-Games...

I'm not personally invested either way with breaking as a sport. I personally thought the men showed great athleticism, although you may not see it.
 
TIMElyBehaviour
Posts
738
Likes
1,322
Archer Archer
Did I indicate otherwise? It's just a discussion mate and I'm just trying to understand where you are coming from. If you don't want to debate it, that's fine, just state your views and I'm good with that.

The implication in your response indicated otherwise with a couple of condescending open ended questions about Zeus and going back to ancient times etc.

The awesome thing about forums such as TOF is that you get a wide range of viewpoints on a subject.
 
TimeODanaos
Posts
1,835
Likes
3,728
Archer Archer
I would go so far as to say athletes will jump ship to countries that do sign on, in order to get to the Olympics. It happens all the time when they feel that the sport system in their country doesn't provide enough for them.
Fingers crossed - although the relationship between money and sport in boxing is fairly fraught at the best of times. I was so pleased so many ex-Soviet central Asian countries prospered, and I hope they can escape the gravitational pull of the Kremlin - and not just in boxing, or just in sports.

Just a sidebar - Britain missed out on their only hope of a medal in women's boxing. Why? A good Cameroonian fighter has lived and trained in England for years, but the British government wouldn't give her a passport. So, she took a bronze for the Refugees team instead, before heading back home to, er, England. 😟
 
Archer
Posts
29,671
Likes
76,828
TIMElyBehaviour TIMElyBehaviour
The implication in your response indicated otherwise with a couple of condescending open ended questions about Zeus and going back to ancient times etc.

The awesome thing about forums such as TOF is that you get a wide range of viewpoints on a subject.

Fair enough if that is how you took it.
 
Gabguzro
Posts
219
Likes
209
Watch my Whisky Watch my Whisky
Kendrick Lamar. Snoop. Dre.

The streets will remember the LA Games.

And Tom Cruise on a motorcycle.

---

I enjoyed watching Breaking. I thought it was a weird choice to include it, but one cannot deny that you need training and a physical attitude to do it. Aside from that woman from Australia who has been the protagonist of the memes, I think it was pretty a pretty serious competition, within the parameters of the discipline.
 
Pastorbottle
Posts
2,781
Likes
4,693
Ya know that dopey breakdance sheila is gonna make a small fortune outta all this publicity, she will be remembered long after the gold medal winners have been long forgotten in the public's minds eye.
 
arturo7
Posts
1,107
Likes
1,655
The internet has gone crazy with memes of the goofy break dancer.

We live in a golden Era.
 
texasmade
Posts
2,645
Likes
2,959
arturo7 arturo7
The internet has gone crazy with memes of the goofy break dancer.

We live in a golden Era.
I guess we’ve moved on from the Turkish hitman (allegedly) sharpshooter and the pole vaulter whose package was too big
 
Sign up or log in to reply...

Similar threads

Annapolis

2016 Rio Olympics Seamaster Diver 300M

Annapolis Omega Watch Reviews
Annapolis
Annapolis
Posts
3
Views
5K
lillatroll

Olympic Games Thread....whats your favourite sport to watch? Spoiler Alert! Some results revealed.

lillatroll Open Discussion
gophishin
gophishin
Posts
57
Views
6K