What Would You Change About The Olympics?

[StrangeQuark]

How do you think the Olympics could be improved?

New events?
Get rid of current ones?
Are they perfect already?

I would allow professionals in. First because the "amateurs only" rule was only introduced to keep out the working class who could not afford to take a foreign holiday if they weren't paid to do it. Second because some professionals (e.g. tennis players) somehow don't count as pro's. Third because countries who have little national interest in a sport (America/China with football for e.g.) end up winning because everyone else’s good players become pro's. Fourth, because the Olympics should be about being the best and although the winner of the 100m can say he's the fastest man on Earth with some authority, the champion boxer cannot say the same in regards to his own event.

I would also get rid of any event where winning the Olympics is not considered its highest achievement.

I would get rid of stupid events like solo synchronised swimming, synchronised diving, 100 metres getting eaten by a crocodile....

[Monster Sink]

I'd suggest that the female participants should have bigger tits.

Do female athletes lack breasts because they're athletes, or do they become athletes because they can't fill their bras?

Other than that, I think the Olympics are fine.

[womble chris]

I would divide the Medal table into TWO tables

Table 1 includes all the events in which all nations can compete e.g. running, shotput,football,

Table 2 includes all the events in which location of a nation is a big factor e.g. without being racist, swimming, as black people cannot swim, and say horse riding, as many countries do not have any horses. If the boot was on the other foot it would us trying to compete in camel riding.

[exnihilo]

Amazing how you can say "without being racist" and then go on to make a blatantly racist remark. Rather like people who find it easier to say "no offence intended" than to actual avoid giving offence.


[hr]Signatures are for fools who haven't said enough already.
(With apologies to Karl Marx.)

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Black people can't swim? Don't tell the KKK - isn't that kind of made up for by their total spectrum dominance in athletics and boxing?

If you ever gamble on boxing, the important thing I learned is - don't bet on the white guy.

And I agree with Monster Sink... although perhaps there could be a seperate category - the 100m D-cup challenge.

Although ideally, the Olympics wouldn't happen at all. Although I admit the hilarity of London trying to win an Olympic bid almost makes it worth keeping it around.

[womble chris]

how is it racist? okay, so probably 0.5% of black people can swim. Is saying people with no legs cant walk rude?? No, its a fact. If i said white people were worse at long distance running, is that also racist, no, its a fact.

[LeopardSkinQueen]

[s]StrangeQuark wrote on 12:04, 17th Aug 2004:


I would allow professionals in.

Every sport except boxing, IIRC, now allows professionals in. That's why athletes who earn a fortune through things like the Golden League meetings can compete, and also under-23 pro footballers.



I would also get rid of any event where winning the Olympics is not considered its highest achievement.

Yup. Get football and tennis out of there. Does anyone remember who is the current Olympic tennis champion? But people remember who is the current Wimbledon champion. It devalues the Olympics, having these medals which just aren't cared about.


I would get rid of stupid events like solo synchronised swimming, synchronised diving, 100 metres getting eaten by a crocodile....

And gymnastics. I hate gymnastics so, so much. OK, so it's a personal hatred, but it would improve the Olympcis for me.




[hr]
[s]What she read- all heady books, she'd sit and prophesise (it took a tattooed boy from Birkenhead to really, really open her eyes).
[/s]

[mottthehoople]

Somebody take an olympic torch to the whole bloody stadium

[andrewdalgleish]

i wholeheartedly agree with the idea that a sport should not be an olympic one if the olympics is not the most important competition. It does devalue the games somewhat.

I've never heard of solo synchronised swimming before (even being an avid olympics watcher) but it's a bit of a paradox... surely swim dancing or something..
Why shouldn't the people who are at the top of these *obscure* sports (synchronised swimming, synchronised diving, gynmastics etc) compete. Nobody really complains about ice dancing in the winter olympics, and it's the same sort of thing. Fair play to them, they put in a lot of time and effort.

A sport I'd love to see in the olympics is orienteering, it's not the most spectator friendly but it is a fantastic sport. This is primarily because it's my sport and I know some of the top orienteers in the world. It'll get there eventually though, it is an olympic recognised sport but for a sport to get into the olympics it needs to have a certain number of nations recognising it by having a national body for the sport and there simply aren't enough countries for orienteering. Bit of a shame for the current orienteers who would win but hopefully some of the next few generations of elite orienteers will get their chance.

[iohannes]

I'd get rid of all the events which are dependent on judges awarding points. In other words there should be a clear and obvious winner. I agree with the comments above about events for which the Olympics isn't the most important competition.

[hr]That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

[Humphrey]

Make peformance enhancing drugs legal so all the hairy East German women, Chinese Pigmies and steroid pumping Russian bodybuilders with shrunken genitalia can come back into the olympic fold where they rightly belong

[hr]http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/

[KMart Cowgirl]

[s]womble chris wrote on 15:01, 17th Aug 2004:
how is it racist? okay, so probably 0.5% of black people can swim. Is saying people with no legs cant walk rude?? No, its a fact. If i said white people were worse at long distance running, is that also racist, no, its a fact.


I think the correct, and non-racist statement would be that there aren't many black athletes who compete in swimming events. To say that they cannot would be to imply a physical disability based on race (which would be racist). To say that a person without legs cannot walk would be to imply a physical disability, based on a physical disability (although i would point out that prosthetics allow many people without legs to walk).

and just in case you are curious all you need to do is search google for "black swimmers" and you will find a myriad of articles of rising black athletes who are in fact swimmers.

here is but one example an article about the first black female (and second black swimmer) to make the US Olympic swimming team.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympic ... 893397.stm

[amac]

[s]womble chris wrote on 15:01, 17th Aug 2004:
how is it racist? okay, so probably 0.5% of black people can swim. Is saying people with no legs cant walk rude?? No, its a fact. If i said white people were worse at long distance running, is that also racist, no, its a fact.

It's a generalisation. Yes there are very few black swimmers, but is that because of their skin colour? No. It's because of numerous social and economic factors that they do best in long distance running. If most African nations could afford the facilities for the more technical sports (anything from tennis to the pole vault) then you would find them doing well in these events. And don't forget that the female world record holder for the marathon is white.

[Steveo]

1. Not have it in Greece,
2. Not have 3 medals, you either win or don't,
3. Make drugs legal,
4. Make it compulsory for a country to enter all events or none,
5. Have less events, liek the loss of football and tennis as has been said and make it almost all athletic/swimming,
6. Have mixed events, for equality sake.

[hr][s]What a beautiful world this will be .... what a glorious time to be free[/s]

[Mr Comedy]

I am so annoyed with the BBC footage.
Only 5 minutes of sailing a day!
What is that?

[iohannes]

[s]Humphrey wrote on 20:12, 17th Aug 2004:
Make peformance enhancing drugs legal so all the hairy East German women, Chinese Pigmies and steroid pumping Russian bodybuilders with shrunken genitalia can come back into the olympic fold where they rightly belong

[hr]http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/


This sounds familiar. I think I might have read this somewhere else before

[hr]
That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

[Cain]

[s]andrewdalgleish wrote on 17:31, 17th Aug 2004:

Why shouldn't the people who are at the top of these *obscure* sports (synchronised swimming, synchronised diving, gynmastics etc) compete.

gymnastics? an obscure sport? i think it's great fun, as there's actually something to watch on top of the competition aspect, whereas, taking away the tension and the competition of track and how athletes will fare, it all ends up as left right left right left right.

get rid of the football, as it doesn't actualyl mean much to footballing nations, or if you're going to have it make it entirely under 23, or even just amateur. Pub athletes at the olympics. jumpers for goalposts.

[andrewdalgleish]

[s]Cain wrote on 20:48, 17th Aug 2004:
[s]andrewdalgleish wrote on 17:31, 17th Aug 2004:[i]
gymnastics? an obscure sport? i think it's great fun, as there's actually something to watch on top of the competition aspect, whereas, taking away the tension and the competition of track and how athletes will fare, it all ends up as left right left right left right.


by obscure I simply meant we don't see it very often (if ever) outside the olympics. I watch it just as much as the other sports in the olympics!

my sport, orienteering, is very obscure, doesn't make it a bad sport...

[womble chris]

i may be wrong but i believed black people had swimming difficulties due to a difference in the makeup of their skin, something to do with densities or something like that.
That is why at my secondary school the sri lankans and asian (we had a high sri lankan number of students) were almost all in the lowest swimming group as they couldnt swim. And yes some had tried to swim before at their primary shcools

[Sir Tufton Bufton]

[s]StrangeQuark wrote on 12:04, 17th Aug 2004:
How do you think the Olympics could be improved?

New events?
Get rid of current ones?
Are they perfect already?

I would allow professionals in.....

You are a bit behind the times:professionals have been allowed in to the Olympics for some time now. There are virtually no amateur athletes at the highest level any longer.

An example is the United States' spectacularly underperforming men's basketball team. Also, look up the gold medalists in sports like, say, tennis. Steffi Graf and Jennifer Capriati, both former gold medalists are many things, but amateur is not one of them.

Rest assured that everyone else is getting paid - and paid well. Top sprinters, for example, can command appearance fees of several hundred thousand dollars a race; marathon prizes are regularly enough to buy a small house.