Sport?

[FNH]

Here is my biased opinionated opinion being presented on an especially opinionated day. 

Ballroom dancing.  IS hard work.  DOES get you very fit.  IS graceful ,and at times a joy to watch.  IT IS NOT A SPORT.

Currently there is a push to get Ballroom dancing into the Olympics, I say NO!

Here are some other activities that are also NOT sports.

Dressage.
Figure Skating.
Diving.
Floor Gymnastics
Parallel Bars etc.

Here's my point.  If you need a Judge to tell you how good it was "in his opinion" then its not a sport.  Can you imagine the World Cup England vs Germany, and the German Judge gives England a 0.1.  I say its nonsense.  There should be no place in sport for opinion voting.

Now on to Boxing ...

... perhaps not.

Can you add to the list of Non-Sports?

[Russell Nash]

I agree with the judging.

I used to think ski jumping was a sport until I found out that most of the score comes from how pretty it was done and not how far they went.

All the track and field stuff counts as sports. They're all about speed, distance, and height.

Curling strikes me as more of a game than a sport.

[FNH]

Curling strikes me as more of a game than a sport.

Good point.  When does a game become a sport.  Physical effort?  Snooker is a game, so what makes that differ from Curling?

I didn't know about the jumping judges!  Thats a shame, another sport goes down the chute.

[Bdoomed]

I used to think ski jumping was a sport until I found out that most of the score comes from how pretty it was done and not how far they went.

yeaaa but its still fun to watch.

curling shouldn't be in the olympics (does anyone really watch that part?)

[Roney]

curling shouldn't be in the olympics (does anyone really watch that part?)

Then what would Scottish participants ever have to offer?  We'd just have to take our blocks of granite and go home.

The "sport" I did at university was archery, mostly because it was almost entirely non-physical.  It's just a long-range game of darts, and the most useful skill is an ability to stand perfectly still.  Like the other marginal sports clubs we had intermittent struggles to keep it classified as a sport -- I'm surprised it doesn't have more trouble at the Olympics.  Particulary as it tends to be quite dull for spectators, unlike, say, beach volleyball.

[ClintMemo]

I had this argument with my friends several years ago.  I say something is a sport if being physically fit and/or "athletic" gives you a big advantage over someone of average physical abilities.
Not a sport:
Golf
Bowling

I hadn't thought about the judging but I agree with FNH.

[Listener]

One of my friends made this argument to me a few years ago -- that it's not a competitive sport if there's no quantitative scoring.  Once it becomes subjective, it's not a competitive sport (though it may still be a sport).

I was forced to watch Stick It last March while visiting my parents.  There's an interesting treatment of qualitative scoring, if you can handle the mind-pablum plot.

The whole boys-are-competitive-girls-are-cooperative argument may come into play here somewhere in that* girls watch sports that are qualitative, like ice skating and gymnastic, and boys watch sports that are quantitative, like football and baseball.

* - this is obviously a generalization and is not intended to represent everyone.

[slic]

I had this argument with my friends several years ago.  I say something is a sport if being physically fit and/or "athletic" gives you a big advantage over someone of average physical abilities.
Not a sport:
Golf
Bowling

While I think that Golf and Bowling are really boring, and only play them when peer-pressured into it, I can't agree with your definition.  Much like soccer, part of what makes up this game is the mind numbing length of play.  Take away golf carts and 18 holes will definitely seperate the fat boys from the men

[ClintMemo]

I had this argument with my friends several years ago.  I say something is a sport if being physically fit and/or "athletic" gives you a big advantage over someone of average physical abilities.
Not a sport:
Golf
Bowling

While I think that Golf and Bowling are really boring, and only play them when peer-pressured into it, I can't agree with your definition.  Much like soccer, part of what makes up this game is the mind numbing length of play.  Take away golf carts and 18 holes will definitely seperate the fat boys from the men

Sure, but the Greek statue gym gods (and godesses) don't much better than the average person in either bowling or golf.  Technique (and blind luck) will get a better golf score than intensive cardiovascular fitness.
Basketball, tennis, soccer, football, racing, rugby...the athlete will run them into the ground.
Sure, bowling can be fun, but my 70 year old mother can throw a strike once in a while.

[DKT]

I'm not sure bowling or golf should be olympic sports but I still think of them as sports, especially considering FNH's definition.  Score's are kept and the crowd can tell who the winner is without the help of a TV commentator.

[slic]

I'm struggling with ClintMemo's definition.  Take soccer - technique really matters, and obviously if I am more fit I can get to the ball faster, run longer, etc.  Where is golf different?  By the eighteenth hole, out in the warm sun for hours, the less fit guy is going to be tired and won't putt as well as the fit guy who is barely winded.  He won't hit his drive as well as either.

A sufficiently skilled soccer player who is less fit (even more so as a team) will run rings around the much more fit, less skilled players.  I have personal experience in that one from when I was 18 and got schooled by the chain smoking fourty year olds and now at 38 making the uber-fast 23 year olds trip over their own feet.

And my 70 year grandma can kick a ball into an open net too.

[FNH]

... and while I'm questioning what is a sport, here's another thing to ponder.

Why do people spend 5 days watching Cricket.  It's very slow and boring.  5 Days of boring.  I dont get that.  I knows theres this 20/20 version and I think I could watch that without cutting my throat.  But 5 days?

... and then theres F1.  People I work with pay hundreds of pounds to go watch F1 racing.  They sit by a track and see only see the cars on a tiny portion of the track go whizzing by so fast that they cant even tell who it was.  Why?  They've told me that it's the atmosphere. huh?  Hundreds of pounds to get sun burn , deafened and you still have to listen to the tannoy because you dont see anything.  Huh?

Now watching a Nascar race or a horse race, where you can see whats happening  I get that.

[Russell Nash]

Now watching a Nascar race or a horse race, where you can see whats happening  I get that.

You see more action in one little bit of an F1 track than on the whoole Nascar ring.  Just getting up to speed and turning left is the definition of boring in my book.

I prefer the adea of A1 (is that right?) it's a new racing devision (is that right?) where the cars have almost new computers in them.  They have just engine controls no traction control, no automatic tranmission (F1 automatically shifts up).  It's back to being about driver skill.

[sayeth]

In my mind, a sport must have 3 qualities:

1. Athletic ability (exercise, not just practice, must improve play)
2. Personal competition (you're playing against another person, not the world record, chance, or a computer)
3. Quantitative scoring (a score must be apparent with very little judgment or personal taste involved)

An activity which fulfills only . . .
#1 is a athletic experience (e.g. hiking, yoga, sex)
#2 is a contest (e.g. Iron Chef, art competition, politics)
#3 is a test (e.g. stock market, most single-player computer games, solitaire)
#1 and #2 is a athletic competition (eg gymnastics, diving, competitive dancing)
#1 and #3 is a athletic performance (eg breaking a world record by yourself, climbing a mountain first)
#2 and #3 is a game (eg chess, darts, poker)

Some activities are borderline. For example, golf only sometimes meets requirements #1 and #2. You could play golf by yourself driving a cart, or you could compete with others and walk the 18 holes. Foil fencing does not always meet requirement #3, since judges have to determine who has "right of way" which can sometimes be a judgment call. Auto racing is also borderline, since I've heard some claim that it requires athletic ability since there isn't power steering, but I see that as dubious.

[FNH]

Some good points "sayeth".

I tend to think of racing in any form as a sport.  I freely admit that the race might be between machines rather than men.  I dont see enough of a difference between car racing and horse racing to call one a sport and then other not.  The competitive element is sufficient for me.

Here's another possible way of testing for "sport".  Would you lay a bet on the outcome, if you didn't know Who the Judges were?  Hmmm...

[Russell Nash]

Here's another possible way of testing for "sport".  Would you lay a bet on the outcome, if you didn't know Who the Judges were?  Hmmm...

When I was growing up in the good old cold war times, we would always say, "and the Russian judge gives a …" after some noticable happening; A particularly good belch, someone slipping n the stairs (Gerald Ford style), making a good catch, etc.  The score was always 6.0 or 2.2.  Way too high or way too low.

[jahnke]

Curling strikes me as more of a game than a sport.

Hey don't get rid of curling... It is my last best chance to become an Olympic athlete. Any sport one can participate in with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other is the one I want to win a gold medal in.

[ClintMemo]

Here's another possible way of testing for "sport".  Would you lay a bet on the outcome, if you didn't know Who the Judges were?  Hmmm...

When I was growing up in the good old cold war times, we would always say, "and the Russian judge gives a …" after some noticable happening; A particularly good belch, someone slipping n the stairs (Gerald Ford style), making a good catch, etc.  The score was always 6.0 or 2.2.  Way too high or way too low.

If we were trying to downplay the importance of something, we would say something like "but it won't cause a missile launch."   Those jokes are completely lost on the younger crowd.

[Russell Nash]

Here's another possible way of testing for "sport".  Would you lay a bet on the outcome, if you didn't know Who the Judges were?  Hmmm...

When I was growing up in the good old cold war times, we would always say, "and the Russian judge gives a …" after some noticable happening; A particularly good belch, someone slipping n the stairs (Gerald Ford style), making a good catch, etc.  The score was always 6.0 or 2.2.  Way too high or way too low.

If we were trying to downplay the importance of something, we would say something like "but it won't cause a missile launch."   Those jokes are completely lost on the younger crowd.

With the way Putin and Bush are starting to go at it, those days may soon be back.

[FNH]

With the way Putin and Bush are starting to go at it, those days may soon be back.

I noticed that Putin looks remarkably like the nutty Russian leader in Crimson Tide.

[Planish]

I tend to think of racing in any form as a sport.  I freely admit that the race might be between machines rather than men.  I dont see enough of a difference between car racing and horse racing to call one a sport and then other not.  The competitive element is sufficient for me.

How do you regard combat robots? To me, it's the same as car racing, given that it's (usually) a human operating (even if only remotely) a purpose-designed machine. As far as a test of the human's skills and fitness goes, both are pretty much the same as video games.

If the combat robots are autonomous, then it's slightly different. It's a test of just the 'bots "fitness", so in a way might be more like human boxing or wrestling.

Hey, there's an idea... remotely operated NASCAR races, or better yet, autonomous auto racing. Rip out all the safety equipment. They have such racing competition for autonomous cross-country vehicles in the Southwest US, don't they?

[FNH]

How do you regard combat robots? To me, it's the same as car racing, given that it's (usually) a human operating (even if only remotely) a purpose-designed machine. As far as a test of the human's skills and fitness goes, both are pretty much the same as video games.

If the combat robots are autonomous, then it's slightly different. It's a test of just the 'bots "fitness", so in a way might be more like human boxing or wrestling.

Hey, there's an idea... remotely operated NASCAR races, or better yet, autonomous auto racing. Rip out all the safety equipment. They have such racing competition for autonomous cross-country vehicles in the Southwest US, don't they?

Combat Robots could be a sport but not as far as humans are concerned.  If its remote control then I think that qualifies as "toys".  It is an engineering competition but not sport.  In my view sport needs a man in control.

What about racing remote robots?  Hmmm... seems like more toys.

[wakela]

I was thinking that Putin is looking like a James Bond villain with that black jacket, black turtleneck combo.  If he starts carrying around a kitten I think we need to Jack Bauer his ass. 

[Holden]

I consider chess a sport. In fact, it's the second most popular sport worldwide (first being soccer).

[Russell Nash]

I consider chess a sport. In fact, it's the second most popular sport worldwide (first being soccer).

It's a game.  If chess is a sport than so are scrabble and crossword puzzles.