Which sport that is in the Olympics now. Would you not really call a sport? And why?

There are so many different sports in the Olympics. On the radio today they had a section where they asked people to ring up with there opinions.
The question was
Which sport that is in the Olympics now do you think is not really a sport? And why?
Well they got heaps of calls and this was some of the answers.

Fencing: Why? It reminded the caller of a couple of kids playing with swords pretending to be pirates.

trampolining : Why because trampolining is something you do in your backyard for fun.

synchronized swimming: We have all done handstands and pretended we could dance underwater. All it is to me is a lot of splashing and sticking arms and legs in the air, Sorry its just doesnt do it for me. Its stupid.

So
Which sport that is in the Olympics now. Would you not really a sport? And why?

Debate....

Table tennis. I know it's more like extreme table tennis when you see them do it, but it still seems a bit of an odd choice for an olympic sport.

I also think it's odd that weightlifting is included, simply because it doesn't really look like a competitive sport. I'm sure it is in some form or other, but I can't see it really.

Fencing is a great Olympic sport. The Olympics really started as military training games, and to see swordfighting still represented is awesome. It's fun to watch and fun to participate in.

Anyway, I'd say table tennis too. And synchronized swimming.

How is that not cool though?

Table tennis requires a lot of hand eye coordination and quick reflex skill, so it is very much a sport, in that it is a competition heavily reliant on physical skill.

One could more easily have a case against equestrian events being a legitimate sport since most of the physical skill involved is in the animal rather than the human receiving the medal.

It is a sport, yes. I don't think anyone said it's not. It's a pretty silly sport to have in the Olympics though.

I'm torn on the equestrian thing. On the one hand it's cool to have horsemanship as an event, as that was an important military skill, but on the other it doesn't really have a ton to do with the human.

How can you get more pure a competition of strength than weightlifting?

The guy who can lift the heaviest bar wins. End of story.

Run faster, jump higher, lift heavier.

I see. I was just going by the title of this thread and then seeing people list table tennis. So that was deceiving.

I guess yeah in that sense I can understand it. It's just not really a team based sport like tennis or whatever. Then again you could say that about diving and that seems to make more sense to me for some reason.

I think it just reminds me too much of The World's Strongest Man for me to take it seriously

Up until 1948 there were Olympic medals given for Town Planning.

Of all the actual team-based sports, you pick the one - tennis - that is primarily an individual sport

Many or most Olympic sports are individual anyway. Swimming, sprinting, high and long jumping, etc.

Besides, shouldn't the strongest man in the world get a gold medal at the Olympics?

I am not a fan of any of the sports that require judges to give an opinion/score.

One must be very athletic to perform well in diving, gymnastics, etc.... but (to me) the scoring is subjective.

I like sports where a person clearly wins... as in faster (sprinting), higher, longer, farther (javelin, disc...), more weight lifted, more precise on target (shooting, archery), more points scored (as in tennis, soccer, water polo...) etc.

Winning because judges provide scores that are averaged to say one person did a performance more precisely... not for me.