Olympic Doping

[breathesgelatin]

Originally Posted by Thetagirl218

And they want to kick out baseball and softball....

Re: baseball and softball, I actually understand their rationale somewhat. There are some misconceptions that led to the sports getting thrown out but also some more legitimate concerns.

First, baseball and softball are really not popular in many parts of the world. They are popular in Japan, US, and Latin America... less so elsewhere. In fact as a world sport cricket is probably just as popular as baseball (and they are trying to get cricket recognized for the Olympics, btw).

Secondly, the IOC became aware of the major US MLB doping issues and sort of overreacted to that. They've become so paranoid about doping, and they began to see it as a sport that is particularly likely to have doping going on. Of course, MLB players aren't eligible for the Olympics anyway (which, incidentally and paradoxically, is another problem the IOC had), but still (and I assume some college players prob. dope too).

The softball issue IMO wasn't as fair because they kicked out softball just because it was the "female complement" to baseball, which isn't totally accurate. Softball doesn't have some of the problems that baseball was perceived to have by the IOC.

Of course, another supposed issue is that no one can ever beat the Americans at softball in the Olympics.

The IOC gets a lot of crap for being anti-American. I sort of follow IOC policy half-heartedly (www.gamesbids.com, y'all), and I think they really WANT to be anti-American but they can't - everyone knows the Olympics and the IOC itself are way too beholden to American dollars to be truly anti-American.

ETA:

My two favorite crazy former Olympic Events?

Tug of War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tug_of_...ummer_Olympics)

AND

Men's Team Gymnastics (Free System) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnast...m,_free_system)

Definitely click on the second link. The photo is hilarious.

ETA 2: One of my favorite links to a video mocking/celebrating cultural differences in sports: http://www.theonion.com/content/vide...y_just_give_me

And dang, those sepak tekraw players are off the hook!

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by breathesgelatin

Re: baseball and softball, I actually understand their rationale somewhat. There are some misconceptions that led to the sports getting thrown out but also some more legitimate concerns.

First, baseball and softball are really not popular in many parts of the world. They are popular in Japan, US, and Latin America... less so elsewhere. In fact as a world sport cricket is probably just as popular as baseball (and they are trying to get cricket recognized for the Olympics, btw).

While I agree...as a purely spectator sport however (such as baseball), sports like swimming, badminton, marathons, running, etc are not well attended whatsoever nor extremely popular. Popularity should not be the definition of what is let into the olympics and what is not.

[breathesgelatin]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

While I agree...as a purely spectator sport however (such as baseball), sports like swimming, badminton, marathons, running, etc are not well attended whatsoever nor extremely popular. Popularity should not be the definition of what is let into the olympics and what is not.

Yes, I agree with you as well. There's popularity of participation in a sport and then popularity of spectating that sport.

Marathons & the Olympics are not much of an issue - you basically buy a ticket to a day or period of athletic events and get to see the marathon along with it, as far as I understand. But yeah, very few people sit around and watch marathons on TV or anything, though people do turn out to watch them go through their city.

Swimming is a pretty popular sport in terms of international participation - the number of countries fielding swimmers attests to that. Not a typical spectator sport outside the Olympics, but the tickets do sell well.

To get into the Olympics, a sport has to meet certain requirements - mainly, it has to have an international governing federation and it has to be practiced in a variety of countries (that's the sense in which popularity matters to the IOC, although of course they're also interested in sports that will sell tickets (although kind of a moot point in some ways, because a lot of people just want a ticket, any ticket) and sports that will play well to the US TV audience).

The easiest way to get a sport into the Olympics at this point is to add a different category of events into an already recognized sport. So for example, FIG is the governing body of gymnastics, and it governs "regular" artistic gymnastics as well as rhythmic gymnastics and trampolining. So it was easier to get rhythmic gymnastics and trampolining added because they were already part of a recognized sport and TECHNICALLY not new Olympic sports, just new events.

By the way, here is the current list of IOC-recognized sports that are not approved to have events at the Olympics. Any of these would be more likely to become an event at the Olympics than a non-recognized sport:

* Air sports
* Bandy
* Billiard sports
* Boules
* Bowling
* Bridge
* Chess
* Climbing
* Cricket
* DanceSport (basically ballroom dancing)
* Golf
* Karate
* Korfball
* Lifesaving
* Motorcycle sport
* Netball
* Orienteering
* Pelote Basque
* Polo
* Powerboating
* Racquetball
* Roller sports
* Rugby
* Squash
* Sumo
* Surfing
* Tug of war
* Underwater sports
* Water skiing
* Wushu

In December 2007, the IOC rejected replacing baseball and softball with karate and squash - which was viewed as a moral victory for baseball and softball possibly coming back.

Oh yeah, and powerboating was also an Olympic sport at one time.

[Benzgirl]

Originally Posted by breathesgelatin

ETA:

My two favorite crazy former Olympic Events?

Tug of War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tug_of_...ummer_Olympics)

AND

Men's Team Gymnastics (Free System) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnast...m,_free_system)

Definitely click on the second link. The photo is hilarious.

ETA 2: One of my favorite links to a video mocking/celebrating cultural differences in sports: http://www.theonion.com/content/vide...y_just_give_me

And dang, those sepak tekraw players are off the hook!

I thought the Tug was funny until I read the Team Gymnastics.