Olympic Sports you don't like

[Johnners]

Originally Posted by Samuel_Vimes

Thread went down bizarrely rapidly after the opening post for mine.

Can't stand beach volleyball (as previously mentioned: it's soft porn pretending to be a sport), but recognise the point of marketing it at the Olympics. That's the key point people are missing here imo - at the Olympics a person can find the sport appealing to his or her own tastes, as opposed to the rest of the calendar year when one has to go out of one's way to avoid football. So talking of removing sports based on their own personal distaste makes little sense, as someone else (in case of handball, three quarters of Europe) will like it and that's the reason it made it in the first place.

Not sold on taekwondo as a sport though. (And this comes from someone who used to train it.) Just a mixture of various martial arts conveniently created for Korean nationalistic purposes. Also played with so much protective equipment that the umpire has the final say.

AWTA

Beach Volleyball is my only real bugbear.

[steds]

Originally Posted by Samuel_Vimes

Not sold on taekwondo as a sport though. (And this comes from someone who used to train it.)

And used to get his arse kicked by girls iirc. Someone's bitter.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by andruid

What's the deal with dressage? Unless you paid the GDP per person of a middle income country for your education what are the odds you will ever participate in it?

My girlfriend competes in dressage and she's yet to convince me that it should be an Olympic sport. She firmly believes it's place there is warranted though so let them have it.

[andruid]

We are all agreed Beach Volleyball is a sham

[Simon]

Originally Posted by andruid

We are all agreed Beach Volleyball is a sham

For sure, Volleyball itself is a good sport and worthy of being in the Olympics, but beach volleyball is a waste of time.

[pasag]

Athletics.

[ohtani's jacket]

Every Olympics we have to endure this stupidity.

How is an Olympic sport validated by whether you like it or want to see it on your screen? Who pays attention to sports they're not interested in?

I hope they bring in stupider and stupider sports to annoy everyone. Chess Boxing!

[16 tins of Spam]

Originally Posted by ohtani's jacket

Chess Boxing!

I'd watch that.

[GIMH]

Originally Posted by Samuel_Vimes

Don't even have to go that far. 200m and 5000m are just cheap doubling up opportunities. Hurdling I can see the point in, but the 400 hurdles is, again, just a couple of years' investment in technique. The throwing events have been split up by geographical region and thus none of them has a decent level (if I'd have to pick one it'd probably be the discus).

Gaaah! Dragged down to their level!

Nah, they do test different things to the other events. 200 is harder than 100, obv, hence why sprinters like Christie could never truly master it the way they did the 100, and why some 400 runners (eg Johnson) could beat the 100 runners at it. As for the 5k, it falls nicely between middle and long distance, it's a tough race and usually good to watch

[sanga1337]

Equestrian and basketball are my two main gripes. And I don't hate soccer but far out SBS shows it so often when they could be showing other stuff that rarely gets seen. This applies to swimming to a lesser extent but I like watching it and at least each race doesn't last 90 minutes.

[Simon]

tbf SBS are all about football normally so its only natural they will show as much of the football at the olympics as possible.

[superkingdave]

yeah love football, hate olympic football, just find it incredibly boring to watch and its on a lot (on SBS as well which is much the better channel to watch)

Like tennis, hate olympic tennis.

[GotSpin]

Beach Volleyball (Normal Volleyball is fine) Synchronised swimming, Tennis, Baseball, Softball and Soccer/football.

[James90]

Tbh I actually like Beach Volleyball as a sport. Seems better to watch two people construct their three shots than six people. I'd argue that it's also a mission to trek through the sand but then you'd have to make a case for every other beach sport.

Dressage is the worst excuse of a sport since the walk. Definitely agree with everyone who said that all sports whose points system is entirely subjective should go. Artistic >>> RG as well.

Strongly disagree with the notion that doubling a distance doesn't make it any different. 100m and 200m running rely on completely different energy systems ffs.

[pasag]

Have enjoyed pretty much all sports in the Olympics besides soccer, tennis, table tennis and dressage. Have even come around to gymnastics.