Wednesday, August 6, 2008

What sports for Olympics?

As I googled today for sporting news I noticed a number of comments on what sports should be included in the Olympics. Phil Mickelson thinks golf should be an Olympic Sport and a number of cricketers, including Steve Waugh and Adam Gilchrist, are backing their own sport to be included.
One of the criteria for Olympic sports is the universal appeal of a sport - that is, how broadly the sport is played across nations of the world. Cricket, though spreading in popularity, still falls way short of being global. Gilchrist is reported saying that building Olympic support of the Twenty20 format will help spread the game to further nations, including the US and China. I understand that it works the other way round - build the sport to world-wide popularity and then be invited to join the Olympic family.
Golf has universal appeal and yet I wonder it's legitimacy as an Olympic sport when it's players are so well rewarded as professionals. I think one of the criteria for being in an Olympic sport is that the Olympics would be considered the pinnacle reward for that sport. I believe tennis lacks that legitimacy because players would surely rank a Wimbledon win over an Olympic medal. Similarly, a golf player would rank a US open or British Open title over an Olympic win also.
I wonder what others think about sports that could be included and those that could be dropped. I know when Beach Volleyball was first accepted in 1996 it was wildly panned by naive critics, particularly because the athletes wore bikinis. Now it is widely accepted for the athletic sport that it is and one of the more popular watched sports. What do you think on what's in and what's out?

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