Every four years the majority of the world watches the Olympics hoping for the best for their home country. But there comes a time when you are watching the Olympics thinking, “How is this even considered a sport” and “How is this even in the Olympics”?
I know for myself, I always think how badminton, fencing, shooting, synchronized swimming, and sailing are Olympic sports when baseball and softball are not.
Now I know that you need hand-eye coordination for the sports I do not believe should be sports, but you do not need to train for these events like you need to train for soccer, swimming, track and field, et cetera. I
feel as though if you do not need to train for a certain amount of time psychically and mentally, it should not be considered an Olympic sport.
The Olympic movement’s words are “faster, stronger, higher”, which in this case does not apply to badminton, fencing, shooting, synchronized swimming, and sailing.
Events that have athletes wear make up (aside from gymnastics, because that is a physically demanding sport), should not even be thought of as an actual sports, solely because appearance is one of the factors when “athletes” are being scored.
Considering that women and men on actual sports teams need to always be in training compared to practicing every other day, is something to look into when deciding what sports should be in the Olympics and what should not. Sports should be looked at in a competitive way, not who can dive the best with a partner or shoot the best towards a target.
When competing against another team, you need the mental and physical preparation that other sports do not need. Knowing that a full team can be eliminated so easily if they make one mistake takes a larger toll on athletes, where as some one might not be as distraught over missing a target by a millimeter when they have another try at it in another round.
Now, some people might think that synchronized swimming is indeed a sport; the only physical aspect of it would be holding your breath for a certain amount of time.
Archery is another one of those “sports” that just needs to be eliminated. How did shooting at a target become a sport? The only thing needed for archery is hand-eye coordination and patience, which I would not consider a sport at all.
I do not believe that there is any “real” training that is needed every day to become efficient at archery.
A sport that has not been in the Olympics since 1908 is lacrosse. I would love to see that make an appearance at another Olympic instead of one of the sports I mentioned above, seeing how lacrosse is physically and mentally more demanding on the athlete.
So, the events that should inevitably be eliminated from the Olympics would consist of badminton, fencing, shooting, synchronized swimming, sailing, and archery, as they are not considered an actual sport from my standpoint.
There are many different events that could take the places of these events that would attract more viewers and would most likely give the Olympics a higher viewing on television (even though it really does not need any more viewers).
So, the conclusion is that what I consider to be an Olympic sport is something that you train for mentally and physically for a long period of time to where if you are over-come with defeat, you are able to proudly say that you did what you could have done to show your country the best of the best, as well as you could have done.
