This issue really evokes my emotions, because of how much I love sports. I think sports are a vitally important part of the human experience. I guess dance is, too, but we’re not talking about dance, in and of itself.
Dance isn’t a sport. Period. Ever. Nobody can change my mind about this. Dance is potentially expressive, beautiful, socially useful, entertaining, etc. But it IS NOT A FUCKING SPORT.
Only sports should be in the goddamned Olympics, and shoving non-sports into the mix is shameful and disgusting. It’s a wad of spit in the face of every great athlete who has ever taken the field. It’s a disgrace to the Ancient Greek tradition that the Olympics are attempting to continue.
I don’t give a fuck that there are already competitions for breakdancing. Or ballroom dancing. People can hold competitions for whatever they want. I actually think competitions shouldn’t be held for entirely subjective and artistic activities, but people can do whatever the fuck they want.
But not in the fucking Olympics. This shit makes me sick.
And before you start pointing out the other subjective, judged events that are already in the Olympics: THEY SHOULD ALL BE REMOVED, TOO. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. NONE OF THEM BELONG.
No more gymnastics (rhythmic or otherwise). No more figure skating and ice dancing. No more skateboarding. No more surfing. No more synchronized swimming. No more freestyle skiing. No more diving. No more BMX. No more ANYTHING that requires judging.
You might browbeat me into admitting that some of those subjectively judged activities are sports, but you will never convince me that they belong in the Olympics.
Olympic sports should be restricted to those which are determined by means of a clock, a measuring tape, the accumulation of OBJECTIVELY scored points, or a physical beating.
Even some of those should be on the chopping block. Some of the points-scoring events are too subjective. If a sport relies too much on fallible human judging, it should be excluded.
The vast majority of the events should be arbitrated only by the cold, merciless, absolute judgment of the clock or the measuring tape. Therein lies the truest purity of sport.
Honestly, the best thing to do would be to reset everything to the REAL tradition of the Olympics. Almost nothing, other than running, jumping, and fighting. With an absolute minimum of rules to get in the way, and all the athletes competing in the nude. Just sandals on their feet. No space-age materials to help anyone. Nothing for anyone to hide. Just human muscle and determination, on display at the greatest possible level.
But it’s all a forlorn dream. Instead, we have to have our stomachs turned, as a bunch of revolting little shitheads wobble and headspin.
The ancient Olympians are going to be spinning in their fucking graves.
EDIT: YES, I AM AWARE THAT THE FIRST COUPLE MODERN OLYMPICS FEATURED NON-SPORT ACTIVITIES, LIKE SCULPTURE AND PAINTING. THAT DOESN’T CHANGE MY VIEW. INCLUDING ART IN THE MODERN OLYMPICS WAS A RIDICULOUS MISTAKE. JUST BECAUSE IT WAS DONE BEFORE DOESN’T MEAN IT SHOULD BE DONE NOW.
And even then, the humans making the robots are going to try to skirt the intent of the rules… Heck, even PvP computer games, which are probably as objective as you can get, need to be patched constantly to stop people using unintended quirks to their advantage.
Maybe there’s no such thing as an objective sport?
About the videogames: if you mean bugs, I don’t think anyone considers them fair game. They are mistakes from the organizers (developers) and should invalidate the results. It’s like if there was a 2 meter deep hole in the middle of a football field, the rules don’t consider that scenario but it’s obvious that that match shouldn’t be valid.
There are objective sports. Those that are not constrained by the physical world, like chess are 100% objective. Theoretically you don’t even need a board, each of the players could simulate it in their head and just communicate their moves.
Even if not 100%, I’d say some sports are close to that, in the case where the rules could be verified by a computer and 3D models that exactly represent all the elements of the game (to reasonable precision).
I don’t know of any 100% objective game that doesn’t rely on luck though (I’m sure some exist). Even in simple games like archery, golf or bowling, there are factors that the players cannot control or measure, like wind. They can measure wind in the place where they are, but they can only assume what the wind is in the path of whatever they are throwing. In chess, black and white players are not equal, and who is which color is random.