Thought you were going to mention the damage they'd done done to the sills of the windows in the new town centre development, antisocial scum.
Each Olympics they have a guest sport and this year its skateboarding alongside surfing, karate and sport climbing
Not a fan of any sport that is judged on opinion, as it doesnt seem a very scientific or accurate way of awarding a win/medal/world title. Even with professional boxing, countless incidences of judging errors and contentious wins... personally with boxing i would use the old amateur scoring system of a point for a landed shot (and maybe include 10 for a knock down) to avoid the arguments but amateur boxing has actually reverted to the pro scoring debacle which lead to countless arguments of poor officiating at previous olympics. How you could judge skareboarding, diving, gymnastics and probably surfing in such a way, would take some figuring out mind..
Climbing is in. (Sports climbing) Edit Redhelen beat me to it. Looks like I'll have to settle for silver.
I've said this for many years but for me things like skateboarding shouldn't be in the Olympics purely because they are judged based on someone's personal opinion on what is good and bad. For that reason I consider them more of an athletic art than a sport. I'd remove all of those events from the Olympics and creat a new one that could be run the year after with all of the artistic athletics in them and allow more actual sports to take their place. However I realise that once you look at the Olympics events the the list of events that would have to go could be quite unpopular. Artistic swimming (synchronised swimming to us simple folk), Diving, Boxing (under professional rules), BMX freestyle, dressage, eventing, Skateboarding, Gymnastics and surfing. I don't think they have any lesser value than the other sports I just think that when an event is judged on the personal opinion of someone as to whether it was good or not then it should be in a separate competition.
Personally I'm looking forward to seeing eSports in the Olympics in a few years (it will happen eventually, I'm 100% sure) Mainly just to see the meltdown to be honest.
I don't think its minority sports that devalue the olympics. It the professional side. Eg. Tennis. Golf. Football. I understand some sportspeople get paid or supported through sponsorship etc. But not in the sense mentioned above. Winning the Football competition ( Age requirements) has far less value than the Hockey one for example. (The best at their sport involved) Some of the traditional things like Cycling have their place. At the olympics and are still valued. Boxing is valid. Some of the best boxers in the world are from Cuba. Unless they defect/go into exile. They cannot become professional. ( unless they've changed tact. )
I don’t really have an issue with these sports such as Gymnastics or Diving. The judges know what they are looking for and these days the commentators rarely say they got it wrong. I can watch gymnastics and diving and appreciate how good they are. At the top of the sport like at the Olympics it’s usually minor errors or total excellence which separate the medals. my issue with this skateboarding is that they were crap lol. I have no doubt what they are doing is hard and there is skill involved. But these guys are suppose to be the worlds best and it was looking more like actually staying on the board was more of a fluke. Imagine watching gymnastics and almost every gymnast was flying off the bars or falling off the beams and scoring zero ahah
I’m watching it now and saying the same thing. I’m sure the high scores they were getting for the tricks at the end was just because they actually managed to stay on the thing. I bet if they’d have all stayed on the scores for completing a trick would have been much lower.
