What should be considered Olympic sport?

There is a movement to have bridge included in the Olympics. Yes, the card game.

How about stupid message board posting?

An Olympic sport should require speed, strength, endurance, and coordination. Notice how "sports" like NASCAR don't require any extra strength or endurance than any schmo on the couch has. Curling? Don't think so. It requires coordination, but not a comparable amount to say, gymnastics. If the activity does not require the amount of speed, endurance, strength or coordination that only a few people in the world possess, then it shouldn't be in the Olympics. Would Dale Earnhardt Jr. be a better driver if he could bench press 400 lbs. as opposed to 200 lbs.? Would running 50 miles per week make him a better driver? He is very very average in terms of athleticism- he does not do a sport.

I vote for that. Damn, I can feel the gold around my neck already!

NASCAR requires endurance......could you drive 500 miles without peeing?

I thought so.

Now lemme go punch a reporter

Having a mental lapse here, but there is not a cross-country event is there?

.....and I used to be a standout high school quarterback and a professional golfer(oh yeh i forgot golf is not a sport).

The only cross country in the Olympics invloves skis or horses.

Ballroom dancing will be an "exhibition sport" in Athens.

I know that cross-country running could overlap a bunch of distance track runners events in summer events, but would still be a great event....more opportunities for distance runners.

Heck, why not add it to the winter olympics? Throw some snow on the course and go.

I've run for 4 hours without peeing, sleep 8 hours a night without peeing, and flown coast to coast without peeing. I think I could drive 500 miles (at 150 miles an hour) without peeing. And even if I had to pee while driving a race car, I don't think it would slow me down at all.

I heard that XC was rejected from the winter olympics because a sport has to be contested on snow or ice. So, yeah, why not just run on some hard packed snow with half inch spikes. That would be COOL!

Any activity in which you can be one of the elite at much over the age of 40 is not a sport. Jerry Rice or Michael Jordan are almost done. Nascar drivers who are 50 are still on top. 'Nuf said.

My ego doesn't need to believe that anything remotely athletic or physical I can still do well at my age is a sport.

Quit now Eddy you old fart...or they'll ban running from the Olympics!

You're a joke, kid, now let me punch someone...

You think it's EASY to drive for 3-4 hours @ 150mph? You think it doesn't require tremendous strength to withstand those g forces pulling those corners at that speed? You wanna sit 6" off someone's bumper at 150mph? You know what kinda mental fortitude that takes? Ever sit in hot f@%@#$ car on black pavement with no AC for hours at a time? NASCAR is tough, baby, and I was just kidding about taking a leak, I'll pee my pants if I win this weekend.

I think X-C running would make a great Olympic sport. It should be a contiuation of X-C World Championships, with both the short and the long course.

Cross country was a part of the Olympic program from 1912 to 1924, that included both individual and team medals. Four of Paavo Nurmi's 9 Olympic gold medals were from his two Olympic cross country races. The United States, in fact, holds an Olympic medal in cross country.

Cross country was pulled from the Olympic lineup because of the disasterous Paris race. 38 runners started in one of the hottest afternoons in Parisian history, and of those only fifteen finished. The course was especially difficult, and was run close to an energy plant belching out poisonous fumes. When Nurmi entered the stadium he was so fresh and untroubled no one had any idea that so many runners were in awful condition. For several hourse, the Red Cross was searching the course for fallen runners.

This was two days after Nurmi had won the 1500m and 5000m on the same afternoon. The next day, Nurmi led his team to gold int eh 3000m team race (his seventh race in six days).

1912 Stockholm 12,000m

1. Johan Kolehmainen FIN 45:11.6

2. Hjalmar Andersson SWE 45:44.8

3. John Eke SWE 46:37.8

1920 Antwerp 8,000m

1. Paavo Nurmi FIN 27:15.0

2. Erik Backman SWE 27:17.6

3. Heikki Liimatainen FIN 27:37.4

1924 Paris 10,000m

1. Paavo Nurmi FIN 32:54.8

2. Vilho "Ville" Ritola FIN 34:19.4

3. Earl Johnson USA 35:21.0

The real problem I have with this kind of stuff is so-called "extreme" sports. The X-Games are unbelievably irritating. I have no doubt this stuff is hard to do...but it just seems so silly. But the fact that half-pipe snowboarding is an Olympic event is a frigging joke.

Dude, I see no difference between half-pipe and other snow-based sports like ski jumping, downhill skiiing, etc.

All about "go that way. Really fast. If something gets in your way, turn."

XC ski very different. VERY hard. High vo2max!

Man, even on a running message board there is someone pimping NASCAR and defending it as tough.

First off, NO FREAKIN' WAY are those drivers tough.

Here are the reasons:

1) Women compete equally with men. The ONLY reason more women aren't winning NASCAR races is because fewer women are involved - like comparing a high school Division I school to a Division IV school. If the sport attracted the same number of women as men, then the number of women winning would be right about 50%. It is a contest of skill (of the driver and the pit crew), nothing more. Physical strength and stamina have nothing to do with it.

2) Just because something requires a bit of endurance doesn't make the participant athletic or even the activity a sport. Sit and stare at a wall without blinking for 4 hours. Takes some stamina (mental if nothing else) but it ain't athletic.

3) Guys can be past their physical prime (someone already said this, but it is true, and I will pile on this point). Football and basketball players can't continue much past 40. Hell, even most baseball pitchers can't.

They do risk their lives doing what they love and/or get paid to do, but they aren't athletes, and it doesn't make them tough. Many football players are athletes and tough. Jorge Torres is tough. 5-hour marathoner Joe is not tough. Jeff Gordon is tough? Rusty Wallace is tough? Again, NO FREAKIN' WAY.