I cant believe there is a court case over whether a card game is a sport

I reckon that Buckeroo, Ker-Plunk and Mouse Trap should be next on the list to be considered as sports.

 

I think you are being very disrespectful to the highly trained professional athletes from the worlds of Monopoly, Jenga, Game of Life and Ludo.

 

No disrespect intended to these genuine athletes however if the Cluedo tossbags jump on the bandwagon I'll not be so restrained.

 

The word "sport" comes from the Old French term "desport" meaning " leisure ".
The oldest definition in English was from around AD1300 being " anything humans find amusing or entertaining"
I rest my case !

 

If darts and snooker can be classed as sports then I don't see why not

 

Any decision made by a public body (Sport England) can be JRd. I think it'll be the Bridge Association paying costs.

 

It should be determined by the question of whether the activity in question requires a reasonable element of physical skill. Bridge is no more a sport than pub quizzing, su doku or doing wordsearches.

 

That's darts done for then.

 

I'd say darts requires a reasonable element of physical skill.

 

Darts most definitely has a physical skill.

 

Agreed. It's more of a sport than shooting for example.

 

I reckon chess would be the more appropriate challenger for a court of law - and if a ruling has been given on chess then this would be an excellent way to disguish whether competitions where the prevailing talent is mental rather than physical are indeed games or sports.

Bridge should be classed in the same way as Chess for sure. But chess has a much bigger and richer global history with structured championships, and televised events, etc. Chess would be the right contender to lead the way - perhaps a legal challenge supported financially by the bridge association as they ahve a much better chance of "winning"

Bridge however, has an element of luck - unlike chess - in the way the cards are dealt. This would steer a judge away from a a game of skill to a game of chance- and without the support of chess stressing the element of mental skill in any sport I could fell a very strong reasoning for ruling against bridge being classified as a sport.

The element about shuffling is utter nonsense - the physical dealer doesn't neccessarily have to be a player - they aren't in poker.

So if I were sport England I would focus on the line in mental vs. physical challenges rather than anything else.

However how they would drug test all those old geysers on beta blockers and other heart medication would be fun!


In fact I wouldn't - I woud use the following definintion.

1. Two teams
2. All of team on the pitch at teh same time
3. The aim of teh team of the teams are to acheive an objective or "goal".
4. At the same time you have to stop the opposition achieving the same objective.
5. Achievement of a single objective or "goal" must be significant and scores 1.
6. The team with the most points at the end of 90 minutes wins.
7. All of the action can be seen by the spectators


Therefore only football and ice hockey are sports

the rest are just games.

 

It may require skill and hand to eye coordination but physical is not something I'd associate with darts.

 

So they throw the darts with their mind? It's not strenuous but it's physical skill.

 

Degrees of physicality and that can be applied to almost anything. Of course there is movement involved which equates to some physical effort but lots of things take physical effort without being classified as a sport.

 

That's true but darts is actually 100% physical. By that I mean there is actually nothing else involved apart from the physical act of throwing a dart. The only reason people don't consider it a sport is because of the setting in which it is conducted, if darts wasn't played in pubs and was instead played solely in arenas or in specially constructed lanes then people would say its a sport but because it is played in a pub while drinking it isn't.

 

Ten Pin bowling is played in specifically constructed lanes and is more physical than darts but isn't yet classified as a sport by the Olympics committee.

 

That is because the Olympics committee are just like Fifa and f1 and choose their sports like the others choose their venues. Figure skating is essentially dancing on ice with the winner decided by a group of people voting for who they think danced best yet they class it as a sport. If that is a sport then the x factor should be considered a sporting competition as in essence they are both artistic expression with the winner is decided in the same way. Shooting is a sport but shooting is identical to darts in that the idea is to hit a target with a projectile. The difference is that the one the Olympic committee consider a sport uses a machine to 'throw' the projectile while the more physical of the two is considered merely a game.

Basically I take no notice of what the Olympic committee think are sports, they choose their sports based on popularity around the world to gain viewing figures and money. For me sports are activities that are primarily physical and can be judged on hard and fast objective criteria. First across the line, highest jump, most accurate throw etc.

By the way I don't like darts