Jayzamann
International Regular
AWTA. I believe that basketball has progressed properly once the Americans started taking it seriously. The notion of the 'dream team' hasn't carried over to other sports like football, where the gold medal winning nation is rarely the best at the sport.Don't like the idea of sports in which the Olympics isn't the pinnacle actually being in the Olympics. CG would be okay though I guess. Should ban all professional cricketers from it though.
Also, tennis. 08 was a shambles considering the US Open started basically the day after the closing ceremony. Federer still won a gold medal, but it was in doubles. And I still remember Ana Ivanovic's mysterious thumb injury. Heh.
Sports like rowing, gymnastics, athletics, etc are proper Olympic sports. Sports where every athlete participating is striving for a gold medal, and winning one is the single greatest achievement of their career. Including sports where players actively downplay their effort to succeed in order to do well in other competitions really dampens the efforts of the others.