Red, White and Controversy

Almost exactly four years ago, I wrote a post called The Red Glasses. It was brought on by a beautiful girl who I became friends with, a member of Canada's national synchronized swimming team. The premise of the post was to think about whether some sports were better than others. I came up with nine criteria, which I still think hold true, that contribute to how a sport should be ranked.

Four years later, Canada is justifiably proud to host our third Olympic Games. Every Canadian I know felt something when Alex Bilodeau brought Canada our first home gold. However, with the olympics has come a lot of debate about what the olympics is and what it represents. Many people, including myself, think that the olympics have become somewhat bloated, and that the value of an olympic medal is somewhat devalued by the number of them available.

Purists, like Trent, will go so far as to advocate extreme change. What Trent has said to me suggests that he believes that all team sports should be out of the olympics, along with all judged sports and sports that are not available to the broader world, ones that Trent would characterize as "elitist". That criteria would basically eliminate the entire winter olympics, leaving a bare-bones olympics that basically would include track & field, swimming, combat sports and possibly rowing, cycling and racquet sports.

I am not willing to go nearly so far. I think that Trent's reforms would marginalize the olympics, and endanger the primacy of the olympics as the premier world sporting competition. However, I will not shy away from controversy. I want to propose, in this post, the most radical changes to the olympics that I would support. I want to emphasize that sentence, because the changes that I might consider ideal would possibly fall short of what I will propose. However, I want to make the point here by being controversial.

Just as a reminder, the ranking characteristics I proposed in 2006 were:

1. Degree of worldwide participation

2. Degree of concentrated participation
3. Results come primarily from the differences in athletic skill of ther participants
4. Level of knowledge of the sport and its rules among the general population
5. Easy to understand and participate in
6. Level of national rivalry in the sport
7. Level of fitness throughout the sport
8. Intensity of training required to excel
9. Use of judges or other subjective methods of evaluation (I believe this inherently worsens a sport, because it becomes a matter of opinion)

I will consider these criteria in my evaluation. I will also consider that I believe the olympics are the pinnacle of world sporting competition, and should remain as such.

If you look at the Beijing games, there were 300 medal events. In Vancouver, there are 86. This amounts to 1158 olympic medals awarded per cycle. This, from my point of view, is clearly excessive. Yet, many of the world's most popular sports are not even included. Golf and Rugby sevens are scheduled to be added in the next summer games, and Rugby makes sense. Golf on the other hand, is not primarily decided by the physical abilities of the athletes, therefore it should be left out.

Additionally, cricket, the second most popular sport in the world, is not included in the olympics. The traditional main objection to cricket is that test cricket, the traditional format, can take several days to complete. However, a shorter variant, called Twenty20 cricket, has recently become popular, and that should certainly be included in the olympics.

That takes us to 304 summer olympic events. Far too many, if you ask me. The first priority is to rid the olympics of the events that are not competitive enough or well-known enough to be included in the pinnacle of world sport competition. Additionally, the sports where the result is not primarily determined by the physical fitness of the (human) athletes. These could include the following:

Trampoline: 2 medal events

Equestrian: 6 medal events

Shooting: 15 medal events

Archery: 4 medal events

Racewalking: 3 medal events

Table Tennis: 4 medal events

Sailing: 11 medal events

Modern Pentathlon: 2 medal events

Fencing: 10 medal events

Rhythmic Gymnastics: 2 medal events

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That reduces the summer program to 245 events. The next step is to remove the events that are too subjective. Most judged sports are far too prone to individual judges' opinion. The sole exception is gymnastics, where by all accounts the judging is extremely specific. Regardless, it is impractical to take gymnastics out of the olympics, because along with swimming and track, it is one of the founding events of the summer olympics. The following events, however, could be removed easily:

Synchronized swimming: 2 events

Synchronized diving: 4 events

That gets us to 239 olympic events. The next discussion is of the events that allow multiple weight classes. I understand that these sports are usually split this way in competition, but I feel that it allows lesser sports to have a huge number of medals, which I believe devalues the medals awarded in the other events. Usain Bolt's height is a clear advantage for him, yet the shorter men still have to race him. Shotput too, does not have weight classes. Therefore, I propose that the following events abolish (more controversial, I would certainly also go for a reduction) their weight classes, and have a single olympic competition:

Wrestling: eliminates 15 medal categories

Weightlifting: eliminates 13 medal categories

Boxing: eliminates 10 medal categories

Judo: eliminates 12 medal categories

Taekwondo: eliminates 6 medal categories

This would get the number of medal events down to 183. The final adjustment that could be made to the summer olympics is to move some of the indoor events that are traditionally contested during the winter in cold climates. If these events were moved to the winter olympics, it would raise the quality of the winter games, and help reduce the number of events in the summer. The following sports could have this action taken:

Basketball: 2 medal events

Weightlifting: 2 medal events

Boxing: 1 medal event

Judo: 2 medal events

Taekwondo: 2 medal events

Handball: 2 medal events

Badminton: 5 medal events

Wrestling: 3 medal events

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This would leave 164 medal events in the summer olympics. The breakdown of these events would be as follows:

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Track & Field: 44 medal events

Swimming: 34 medal events

Gymnastics: 14 medal events

Cycling (various kinds): 18 medal events

Canoe/Kayak: 16 medal events

Rowing: 14 medal events

Diving: 4 medal events

Tennis: 4 medal events

Volleyball: 4 medal events

Water Polo: 2 medal events

Field Hockey: 2 medal events

Association Football: 2 medal events

Triathalon: 2 medal events

Twenty20 Cricket: 2 medal events

Rugby: 2 medal events

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I believe that this selection of events, with additions as new sports come to prominence (I'd personally like to see an Ironman in the olympics), would provide an olympic games with all the grandeur and scale of the current games, while bringing the games much closer to being the pinnacle of human athletics. An olympic gold would say to everyone "I am one of the world's best athletes," and "I took on the best from all around the world, in a fair competition, and won". That would be a great day.

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As for the winter olympics, the 86 medal events from Vancouver would be joined by the 19 newcomers from the summer games. I also think that squash and men's mixed martial arts, both popular and exciting sports, should be added. I would also be sympathetic to additional combat sports, being that I wiped out most of their medals earlier in the post.

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This gives us a starting point of 108 medal events for the winter games. Following the same approach as with the summer games, the first step to fixing the winter games is to take out those events that are not competitive or do not require physical fitness. This pains me to do, because I love curling, but it simply doesn't meet the criteria and has to go. The events I would endorse removing are:

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Curling: 2 medal events

Women's Hockey: 1 medal event

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The next, and most arduous task, is to eliminate the events that are too subjective due to judging. Figure skating will be the most controversial here, because it is a core event of the winter olympics and has been around a long time. However, I am of the opinion that the judging is simply too subjective to make it a fair competition at this point.

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I also think that there are some changes required to avoid eliminating certain events. Moguls events should be changed to eliminate the judged component, and become a simple race. Additionally, the Ski Jumping portion of Nordic Combined should be replaced by an alpine event, most likely downhill.

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The judging-dependent events that should be removed are:

Figure Skating: 4 medal events
Snowboard half-pipe: 2 medal events
Freestyle skiing aerials: 2 medal events
Ski Jumping: 3 medal events

That leaves 94 medal events in a more diverse, more fair and more athletic winter games. The total number of olympic medals awarded per cycle under my plan would fall from 1158 to 774, which I believe would restore much of the lost exclusivity of an olympic medal.

These changes will never come to pass for political reasons (figure skating is too popular), but I honestly think they would make the olympics much better. Let the controversy begin.