Alternate Olympic Sports

7s is set for 2012, AFAIK.

Which is 7s? (I've seen it a few times on TV, just not sure which one I was watching at any given time.:eek:)


Roller hockey got demonstrated in 92, and lacrosse has been in several times.

That's why I don't understand why lacrosse isn't a medal sport. Didn't know they had roller hockey in '92 though. Maybe it'll get another shot some day.


The IOC recognises it as a sport. Maybe a wave pool?

That'd have to be one big wave pool!:D:cool:

Like I said, I love the idea of surfing being in the Olympics, but it's just not workable in every country.

If they could build mega wavepools, that'd be great as it would make good surfing available damn near anywhere at any time of year.

Which for me, living in the northeast U.S., would be ideal.:cool:


Didn't know that one. Sounds cool.

Lots of fun. Used to be fairly popular for a while, then snowboarding kinda overtook it. Now it's making a bit of a comeback, so, it'll be interesting to see where the sport goes in the future.
 
Summer Games...

Bring 'em Back:

Baseball: ...

Softball: ...

Besides, Japan won at Beijing, that would seem to indicate the rest of the world is getting better.

I'll agree to that. It does make the IOC look a little short sighted to remove it; it has a truly international fan base (US, Caribbean, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Korea, both China's, etc.), certainly more so than other official Olympic sports.

Then again, maybe the WBC is better suited to baseball than the Summer Olympics.

Rugby: ...

Cricket: ...

Despite not watching them nor having any idea how their really played, they should be in the Olympics; again, a large fanbase.

Karate: ...

Roller Hockey: ...

Yeah, a summer version of Ice Hockey would be interesting. As would Martial Arts in general (perhaps mixed martial arts... but I doubt it has the international appeal).

Lacrosse: ...

The problem here is that Lacrosse has zero fan base outside the US and Canada. Major League Lacrosse had to reduce its teams from 10 to 6 because of financial difficulties back in 2008-2009. Still a great sport.


Skateboarding: ...

Street luge: ...

Both would be nice additions.

EDIT: IMNSHO, Handball would be nice to see as well.

As a not very serious (but incredibly awesome) proposal, 43 Man Squamish (or at least have a televised match once and a while :))?
 
One thing that sports have to overcome to get in the Olympics is that half of the IOC's members are European, and as a number of sportwriters pointed out when Baseball and Softball were kicked out after Beijing, a lot of 'em think either (a) if a sport's not popular in Europe, it shouldn't be in, or (b) if a European country can't medal, it shouldn't be in. The Dutch have a pretty good softball team, and I'm sure if Softball was on the schedule for 2012, the Brits could put together a team. If they're worried about competition, do what some countries are doing for their female hockey players: send them to school either in the U.S. or Canada, play with and against some of the best players in the world, and when you come back, there's the nucleus for a national team, which would not only play in international competition, but develop the sport locally, so that in time, there's a pipeline of new talent. But to develop Olympic-class players, you'd have to send 'em to the U.S. or Canada (or Australia-the Aussies have a good softball team and usually gives the U.S. a good run in international competition). My old college, CSU Fresno, has had Olympians play softball for not just the U.S., but Canada, Australia, and even Greece (Athens 2004-one player had an American dad and Greek mom, and she was recruited to play for Greece). When the Olympics come back to the U.S. (hopefully in 2020), the IOC will realize its mistake and bring at least softball back-and baseball too.
 
The 2010 Asian Games are going to feature, Baseball, Batminton,Bowling, Billards, Chess, Cricket, Dance Sport, Dragon Boat, Golf, Karate, Rugby, Table Tennis, Softball, Squash and a few others. Addeed to the traditional olympic sport, there should be something for everyone.
 
...you mean walking around trying to not get lost? Yeah, really sporty that one.

:rolleyes:

Considering that there's several disciplines of it (foot and bicycle for summer, trail for the Paralympics, and ski for the Winter Games), a World Cup of it, World Championships, a junior world championships, and is competed at the World Games (which is basically an Olympics with non-Olympic sports), there would be plenty of interest in it. It's race adventuring, basically. And you can't claim it's not "sporty" enough, especially if Equestrian contested at the Olympics already. And with the world trying to go green, this would be an ideal addition, especially since it labels itself as such.

http://www.orienteering.org/i3/index.php?/iof2006

Roller hockey would have to have both quad and inline. You may have an issue with inline, as the top three countries are the US, Canada, and Finland. It's a pretty big drop off from those three. However, on occasion ice players do play for their inline national team. There was a World Championships a few years ago that had the Oilers' Ales Hemsky compete for the Czech Republic. If you can get a handful of NHLers willing to compete during the summer, I think there wouldn't be much resistance. Quad would be dominated by Spain and Portugal as well, I'm not familiar with it as I am inline, though. But still, it would be really neat to see.

Karate SHOULD be in, it's far more entertaining to watch and follow than judo, at least in my opinion. Wushu and caporeia as well.

I think you can argue why cricket shouldn't be in the same way you can argue against baseball. Cricket is popular in certain regions (England, Caribbean, Australia, India and Pakistan), but not others (North America, South America, East Asia). With baseball you have North America, Latin America, Caribbean again, East Asia, but a lack of interest in Europe (save for the Netherlands) and India/Pakistan. That said, I have nothing against cricket, in fact I think it's a really interesting sport, and I wouldn't have a problem at all with it being added. It should be, in fact, although it would have to be Twenty20.

Lacrosse would have a little bit of an issue since it's not very popular outside North America. However, it would be interesting to see how the IOC goes about it, especially since the three traditional powers are Canada, the US, and the Iroquois Nation. I'm not familiar with the IOC's policies towards allowing First Nations to compete in the Olympics, if they'd be allowed to or not (they are sovereign nations, after all.) I don't think Canada would have too much of a problem with it if they added lacrosse to the schedule, it would make it a bit more competitive.
Looking at the World Championships results for lacrosse, the only other country to do well outside of the Big 3 is Australia. Also judging from this, though, there wouldn't be a lack of countries competing, although how competitive they'd be is another story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_World_Lacrosse_Championship

Skateboarding should be in, as should street luge. You may get some resistance from the older crowd who will not accept them since they're "X-Games sports", but you also have to consider the amount money the IOC can make off the competitions. Plus Shaun White competes in skateboarding. It would be marketing heaven for the Olympics.

Also, how about speed roller skating? A number of Olympics medalists in speed skating during the Winter Games (Derek Parra being one off the top of my head) came from roller skating. There's also artistic roller skating (figure skating, more or less), although how competitive that is I'm not sure.
 
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I think you can argue why cricket shouldn't be in the same way you can argue against baseball. Cricket is popular in certain regions (England, Caribbean, Australia, India and Pakistan), but not others (North America, South America, East Asia).
Also... 'Day 8 of the Olympics: Top News - Round 2 of the Cricket Tournament starts today, now that the England - Pakistan game has ended. At the current rate, the Gold medal will be awarded on September 15.'

:)
Cricket is the only field sport I know of where matches often last multiple days....
 
Also... 'Day 8 of the Olympics: Top News - Round 2 of the Cricket Tournament starts today, now that the England - Pakistan game has ended. At the current rate, the Gold medal will be awarded on September 15.'
Cricket is the only field sport I know of where matches often last multiple days....

The cricket matches at this years asian games (in china) will last for three hours.
 

Michael Busch

Karate has been proposed for the Olympics at least twice, and would be a good addition. The problem OTL was the massive disagreements about the rules for sparring - resolve that, and some very good kumite will happen.

There was also a disagreement about kata competition. My sensei took the position that there should not be any - since judging kata based on some ideal timing or form or millisecond-synchronization defeats the purpose of kata as practice for an actual fight. Even if kata competition is desirable, I suspect that having two events for the sport would be considered excessive (at least at first).
 
The cricket matches at this years asian games (in china) will last for three hours.

That's presumably as they are Twenty20 - the newest format where each team gets 20 overs. There are also One Day Internationals (which are fifty overs per team), and of course test matches. Twenty20 and One Day Internationals have their own World Cups, test cricket has a ranking system that's confusingly called the Test Championship.

One issue with cricket is the teams - England, Scotland and some of the Ireland team would have to play as Great Britain, Ireland would lose some players and the West Indies would be fragmented in to a whole number of not very good teams. If it were to happen, I reckon only Jamaica would be good enough. Obviously the Olympic events would not be considered events for the World Rankings, if the ICC bring in a world ranking for T20.
 
That's presumably as they are Twenty20 - the newest format where each team gets 20 overs. There are also One Day Internationals (which are fifty overs per team), and of course test matches. Twenty20 and One Day Internationals have their own World Cups, test cricket has a ranking system that's confusingly called the Test Championship.

One issue with cricket is the teams - England, Scotland and some of the Ireland team would have to play as Great Britain, Ireland would lose some players and the West Indies would be fragmented in to a whole number of not very good teams. If it were to happen, I reckon only Jamaica would be good enough. Obviously the Olympic events would not be considered events for the World Rankings, if the ICC bring in a world ranking for T20.

Hmmm... Considering that, IIRC, the US Virgin Islands for one, and Hong Kong, for another, field their own teams, having England and Scotland field separate teams shouldn't be a problem. Of course, they'd then have to field separate teams in ALL sports.
 
One issue with cricket is the teams - England, Scotland and some of the Ireland team would have to play as Great Britain, Ireland would lose some players and the West Indies would be fragmented in to a whole number of not very good teams. If it were to happen, I reckon only Jamaica would be good enough. Obviously the Olympic events would not be considered events for the World Rankings, if the ICC bring in a world ranking for T20.

Trinidad and Tabago, Barbados, and Guyana would probably all have pretty decent sides. Its also unlikely that the other major cricketing nations, South Africa, Australia, India etc. would send full sides to compete. They would probably likely be 'A' sides, or maybe even U-24 youth teams.
 
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