Conundrum wrote:
You seem to be a smart guy but you are now using all that reasoning power in a biased fashion to prove your previous premise which is faulty.
My premise is that it is much more difficult to excell in a sport which is widely practiced than one with limited participants. Of course that is not always the case and there are some exceptions.
This is pretty straight forward.
And I return to my original point, which is, what difference does it make that it is "much more difficult" to excel in sports which are widely practiced than otherwise? I'll concede the foregoing for the sake of argument (and to be getting on with it), but then I don't see where that leaves us. I don't see, for instance, where that results in any conclusion that the sport with "limited participants" is somehow "less worthy" of consideration, or inclusion in the Olympics, or whatever.
As for the equestrian events per se , I'm confident that there are other sports included in the Olympics whose world-wide level of "participation" is less, and whose participation takes place on a much more geographically limited basis. And I dare say there are sports whose participation rates are greater than any number of the "minor" sports that currently included in the Summer Olympic program.
You initiated this thread with this: ". . . just ridiculous, nonathletic well dressed rich guy on very expensive horse trotting around the field with different stupid cantors." While I've refrained from quibbling with the general ignorance (and, I suspect, a class/social bias) this observation reflects, I will note that there are any number of events in the Summer Olympics whose practioners are, by any measure, "nonathletic." But if the Olympics were nothing but a contest to determine which country can put up the athletes with the highest VO2 max, etc., that could done with far less pomp and circumstance.
Ultimately, what I find curious is that, on this running board -- where, for most of the year we are treated to self-absorbed runners, seemingly infatuated with their own abilities and latent potential, bitching and moaning about how distance running, or track, isn't taken sufficiently seriously, or given adequate attention, in comparison to other, more popular sports in a country like the United States -- have no qualms, whenever the Olympics roll around, to denounce this or that sport as being "unworthy."
Somehow, I think it always comes down to the same thing, with a frustrated runner feeling put out that the wider world just doesn't appreciate what a "great athlete" said frustrated runner is, how so much more difficult his much more worthy sport is, how so much harder he has to work. "Pay attention to me."