What Winter Olympics sport would you get rid of?

[Archae]

My view?

Figure skating.
I know, it is beautiful, and the skaters are talented.

But the judging is so damn subjective, and wasn't there a judging scandal not long ago, a judge was paid off?

[undeterred]

1. Cockfighting.

Too violent.

[jmowreader]

5. No! Keep cockfighting...

Move it to the summer games with the rest of the fencing events, though. Imagine the grandeur of witnessing two nude men slapping their penises against each other until one man surrenders from the pain.

You meant a different kind of cockfighting? Never mind.

[undeterred]

9. Well the nude men get so cold

that it takes away from the grandeur. So move it to the Summer Olympics where at least they'll be more comfortable.

[ChiciB1]

16. OOOOOOKKKKAAAAAY! I'll Bite! There Really Aren't Cockfights

are there? You're making a funny? Yes??

And that I even asked makes me feel really, really stupid!

But I like figure skating, but find the scoring atrocious! However, I have come to like curling and can't say why! I live in Florida and NEVER even heard of the thing until the last Winter Olympics!

I don't like cross country skiing, but skiing is a MAJOR part of the Winter Olympics, I guess.

[undeterred]

33. No, not in the Olympics.

But its more popular than most people realize. I don't want to watch any kind of fighting, personally.

[ChiciB1]

35. Gotcha... I Know That It does Go On, But Still Wasn't Sure If This Was A

Joke or not. I'm totally against ANY kind of fighting, and one of my big no-no's is BOXING!

Of course WARS top the list and I'm a pacifist! People have tried to tell me over the years WHY they are essential and some have given me things to ponder, but I can honestly say I would ALWAYS be an OBJECTOR to any!

When I was very young I remember the then Cassius Clay standing his ground and never forgot it. But I found it strange that he was the Heavy Weight Champion of the World! It was some kind of irony to me! Don't get me wrong, I supported what he did, but I just found it to be odd at the time.

[Crazy Dave]

2. Curling n/t

[Captain Hilts]

23. Like biathalon, it's a traditional sport. And VERY popular around the world. nt

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

54. Bah!

Read on...

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/etc/84196957.html

[LostInAnomie]

3. Figure Skating, without a doubt.

1. I hate sports that are based on subjective scoring.

2. They show it WAY too much on TV.

3. They show it even when they aren't even competing giving other sports the shaft.

[Richard Steele]

7. If the scoring is SUBJECTIVE, then it isn't really a sport, now is it?

Imagine if a golfer finished 25 strokes behind Tiger Woods,
but the JUDGES declared him to be the winner because
his pants "went better" with the backround noise from the crowd...

Imagne.

[undeterred]

8. Its probably the most popular sport of the Winter Olympics

and the most enjoyable to watch. There's a subjective element to it, but the better acquainted with it you are, the less subjective it seems. It gets better ratings that some of the other sports so of course the network is going to take advantage of that.

[LostInAnomie]

11. It might get better ratings...

... but that's not what the Olympics is about. It is about competition. Yet, for some reason the networks show skating even when they aren't competing. While other sports are going on. While gold medals are being won and lost, they show skating exhibitions.

Plus, whenever skaters are given an "artistic" score it is very subjective.

[undeterred]

15. From the point of view of the network its about ratings.

Don't forget that our corporate masters rule everything, including the Olympics.

[Captain Hilts]

20. Exactly. Go watch the icecapades. nt

[bluesbassman]

4. Turkey Bowling.

Won't somebody think of the poultry?

[Crazy Dave]

6. It's only official when played with frozen turkeys and 2-liter coke bottles

;-)

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

55. Now that's a sport I think they should ADD....

There needs to be an alternative Olympics. Clearly.

[jmowreader]

10. I will also go with figure skating, for a number of reasons...

Reason 1: Figure skaters are not athletes. They are ballet dancers. No sport requires its participants to wear makeup. In figure skating even the men do.

Reason 2: Because it is ballet dancing there are no standards for it. In luge the winner is the athlete who makes his three runs in the shortest combined time and survives to the award ceremony as Olympic medals are not awarded posthumously. In figure skating you lose a point because you dribbled poutine down the front of your dress at lunch.

Reason 3: No sport gives its participants roses after performances.

Reason 4 and most important: as far as NBC is concened there are four events at the Olympics: bobsled, skiing, hockey and figure skating. And figure skating gets more airtime than the other three combined; "We have just received word that every biathlete broke the current world's record, and we may show you thirty seconds of footage after we finish our nine-part feature on Morris Grigsby, the man who sharpens USA Figure Skating's skates.

[LostInAnomie]

12. Indeed.

Although, you can probably replace hockey with speed skating in you list of NBC's four events.

[Kali]

14. reason 3

there is that horse race...

[Orrex]

17. How do they get the horses to wear ice skates, though?

[jmowreader]

38. Isn't that just one race?

[Captain Hilts]

21. Yes, they ARE athletes. But I strongly agree with everything else. nt

[tigereye]

37. I don't know- being able to do jumps and turns on ice at high speed

seems pretty athletic to me. :shrug:

[pokerfan]

13. Figure skating

It's artistic expression, and can be quite moving. But it's not a sport.

I would dump freestyle skiing and anything else that has a panel of judges telling us who "won."

[Orrex]

18. If we get rid of figure skating, we'd have to remove gymnastics from the summer games

And diving, and synchronized swimming, and all of the other judged events. Even boxing, when the fight doesn't end in a KO.

[Captain Hilts]

24. Fine by me. I HATE the gymnastics too. nt

[jmowreader]

39. Judging isn't the main reason to take skating out of the Olympics

The real reason is it takes airtime from more worthy sports. A similar spectacle happened when Lance Armstrong rode the tour de france for the first time after defeating testicular cancer. All this "motivational" shit they did took away from the reality of the situation, which is that there were men riding bicycles through France really fast.

[Orrex]

45. That's not a bad argument.

This year, as far as the American media knows, there's only one speed skater in the entire world. And we hear about him ten times an hour.

He seems like a nice enough guy and a fantastic athlete, but is he really the only guy on skates?

[GreenPartyVoter]

41. Well, dang. You guys are gonna hate it if they ever add cheering as an event.

:D (But I have my fingers crossed. It could happen someday.)

[Orrex]

44. I would never assert that figure skating or cheering isn't a sport

The problem isn't with the ability of the participants or the athleticism of the activity; the problem is entirely in the subjective nature of the judging.

[GreenPartyVoter]

46. Cheering is only partially subjective. Either ya landed that cradle or you didn't. Either your hand

touched down on that back tuck or it didn't. They even have instant replay at the larger competitions so that judges can be sure that they saw what they saw.

That said, yes there will always be a subjective component to it, same as with figure skating and high diving and gymnastics etc. But any sport where there is a ref on the floor or field is going to be dogged by subjectivity too. Bad calls suck no matter what sport they're in. :P

[Orrex]

47. True, but a line judge's call can be overturned

If the judge from, say, Iceland gives the figure skater a 6 when everyone else gave her a 9.8, can anyone overrule that score?

[GreenPartyVoter]

48. Do they not drop the highest and lowest scores? Haven't watched it in ages. But yeah, it bites when

there is a judge who gives extremely low scores. I have not run into this in cheering, but since I coach an elementary school team the judges are pretty generous. :P

[Orrex]

49. You're right--I forgot about that.

I imagine that the rule is intended to limit the possibility of a non-objective judge giving a too-high or too-low score for, let us say, questionable reasons.

[Captain Hilts]

19. Agree about the figure skating. It's 'judged' and those that skate later have advantage over those

that skate earlier because judges always leave room for something 'better' when they judge early skaters.

This is how Nancy Kerrigan was robbed of a gold by Oxsana Baiole (I can't spell it). If Kerrigan had skated late rather than early, the gold would have been hers.

I know figure skating judges. It's a racket.

[Captain Hilts]

22. 'Mogol' everything. And the in the air twirling on skis or boards. Not a sport.

[nickinSTL]

25. not sure - definitely NOT figure skating though

yes, there is subjective judging. As another reply says, gymnastics, diving, other sports also have subjective judging elements - as do ski jumping and some of the freestyle skiing and snowboarding (I think - I don't watch snowboarding).

The technical bits of the judging are not as subjective as they appear - and the way the judging system was changed after the scandal makes the blatant abuses that occurred much more difficult.

I don't necessarily like the artistic expression bit of the judging, though I don't have a serious problem with it.

I do hate it in women's gymnastics. I find it incredibly sexist that female gymnasts are judged partially on their artistry and the men are not.

As for what sport to eliminate...I'm sure there's some kind of freestyle skiing I could do without.

I don't much like it. But, maybe I'm old-fashioned - I much prefer alpine skiing.

[Sinistrous]

26. Snowboarding

Snowboarding : Skiing :: Rap : Music

[surrealAmerican]

27. Skeleton:

It's just way too scary to watch.

... either that or ice hockey. The big team sports really fit better in non-olympic venues.

[GoCubsGo]

28. Yep. Any of the subjectively-judged sports...

Figure skating, snow boarding... Ditto for gymnastics in the Summer Olympics.

[DevonRex]

29. It's not even beautiful anymore. There are so many falls that it has become

flat out embarrassing to watch. I'm sick of the drama associated with it, too. I don't want to see another teary teenager on the bench waiting for his/her scores.

[TheMightyFavog]

30. Ditto on Figure Skating.

Call it what is is. A waste of a perfectly good hockey rink.

[TheMightyFavog]

31. Ditto on Figure Skating.

Call it what is is. A waste of a perfectly good hockey rink.

Although, just once, I'd like to see the figure skaters play hockey. In their costumes.

The fights alone would be worth it.

[UTUSN]

32. Everything listed under "Winter Olympics"!1 n/t

[SoxFan]

34. Ice Dancing (crooked as hell) and those X-Games retread events

[tigereye]

36. yes, but that's the sport most people tend to watch

Me, I could just watch bobsled and alpine skiing all day long. The Nordic combined? (skiing and shooting) leaves me a bit bored, I suppose..

[NoGOPZone]

40. Nordic combined is ski jumping and cross country skiing

The biathlon is cross country and shooting.

I too find these events boring, but if they had an an event where the athletes shot rifles while ski jumping, that might be interesting.

[tigereye]

53. right, got em mixed up... I just don't care about the shooting...

I do love ski jumping, though.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

42. bob costas

[Gore1FL]

43. Id rather not get rid of one, but I'd like to change the biathalon

so they shot each other while on skis rather than targets.

That would get some ratings!

[Archae]

50. Paintball biathalon!

:-)

[Gore1FL]

51. Oh sure..take the death out of it....

:)

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

56. LOL!

A little death makes oh-so more interesting.

[Iggo]

52. Tandem Luge.

WHY????

[KamaAina]

57. Speed skating

I mean, c'mon, how can you take a sport seriously that has Colbert as a sponsor?!

:sarcasm: