What is a sport?

I'm not sure what a sport is, but the infield of the track I run on once had a sign that said, "NO SPORTS OR GOLF WHILE FIELD IS BEING RESEEDED."

my definition of a sport is:

if you can get drunk and get better it is Not a sport.

football sport

running sport

cheerleading sport

golf not a sport

bowling not a sport

curling not a sport

horseshoes not a sport

cycling sport

i guess we can cross golf off the list.

i also have touble accepting anything that is subjective in scoring. cheerleading is based as much on costume and makeup as the actual routine. then again, you can't do that shit drunk, as pointed out.

Cheerleading a sport? Just because it is now PC to give a varsity letter for participation, doesn't make it a sport.

Dave out

They give varsity letters for mock trial and good grades, too... cheerleading isn't a sport.

Anything that you get points for "artistic impression" not a sport.

Gymnastics.

Ice prancing

Synchronized Swimming.

Diving.

Not sports.

You can't work a combine drunk, and that surely isn't a sport.

I agree with nixing anything that is subjectively scored, but that brings up a whole other debate: Aren't most sports subjective on some level? Figure skating purists will argue that judges are determining whether jumps are being performed correctly with as much accuracy as a referee deciding an offsides call or an ump calling balls and strikes.

Mashed Taters -

Don't forget half-pipe snowboarding.

I like watching some of those exhibitions, but any 'sport' in which you can't tell who won until a bunch of knucklehead compare bribes and post scores is not a sport.

I have it from some very reliable sources that most cheerleaders are on EPO.

so we should lable things as "sports" and "games". clearly football, baseball, basketball, hockey ect. are games. i also feel that team "games" should not be in the olympics.

it's not hard to lable most, and then we can see where we have sports or just mere games. like i said earlier, track, swimming, wrestling are sports. but this way of sorting things leave me wondering, "what the hell is the luge then?

A genuine sport should contain two key elements.

1. Athleticism....either pure aerobic endurance a la Lance or Khalid, or the kind of explosiveness that allows a guy to dunk over a 6"8 guard. Both are different kinds of athleticism, but athleticism nonetheless.

2. Head to head mano a mano objective competition; clocks, tape measures, scorekeepers decide winners and losers...NOT JUDGES.

Gymnasts for example are some of the toughest, strongest, best conditioned athletes out there but they do not compete in a sport...they perform a show. it doesn't matter how athletic the show is, its still a show. Its the circus with rules.

rope climbing was competed in in the first olympics.

Very much agree with you, but gymnasts is not a show as much as it is a "trick". Same with ice-skating & all that other judged crap. It's like the kid in the backyard "Didya see me do my trick, didya see?" Checkers is more of a sport then gymnasts & ice-skating, when your done everyone knows who the winner is.

Who cares? If people want to do an activity and other people want to watch it, it's entertainment, and that can't be all bad. I mean, I like to watch a good man against man competition as much as anyone, but in the end it doesn't mean anything much. Somebody wins, but that doesn't mean he (or she) is not a complete asshole. I've won some small races and I'm a complete dick.

By the way, one of my requirements for an activity to be a sport is that it has to make you utterly miserable whilst doing it. Thus running, cycling, swimming, etc are all sports, especially when the conditions are shitty. Sprinting is not really a sport because by the time you start to suffer sufficiently, the race is over. Games involving balls are generally too enjoyable to be a true sport. I guess boxing and wrestling are probably pretty painful, so they qualify.

I've always viewed wrestling as a true sport, and i've always considered it amongst the toughest to compete in.

Recently, I watched a documentary on ESPN about the IOWA wrestling team, and their training, and a season with them. It was intense. I ran DI, hard mileage, harder workouts. But, the shit that these guys did made me feel bad just sitting and watching. The next thing I know, I'm doing crunches and back exercizes while the show is on. Seriously, these guys made me rethink how hard I really train. I believe it may be the most demanding sport, physically....maybe mentally to handle the workload and the intensity of practice and matches.

Wrestling=Sport.

But really, sports is simply the term assigned to generalize all games and contests. Sports is a similar word to human being. We have man, woman, white, black, different countries, different ages, different ways of life. But we're all human. Just as in "sports", there are games, contests, matches, competitions. There is one on one. There are teams. And there is always baseball, basketball, football, rugby, badmitten, dancing, or whatever anyone else can put under the general catagory of "sport".

Now, what we're really doing isn't defining sports, we're defining our respect for those sports....and rightfully so!

I agree with you. I think everybody wants to think their sport is the hardest, and when they hear somebody say such and such a sport involves harder training, they get all offended.

One interesting thing to think about is that in the hierarchy of sports, I guess you could say that the "purest" sports are the most accessible. You don't need any special equipment to run, swim, fight, jump, etc. Something like soccer is pretty close, because you can basically come up with something resembling a ball fairly easily, and that's all you really need. On the other hand, something like half-pipe snowboarding is only accessible to a small percentage of the world's population. There may be good athletes participating, but you also have to keep in mind that the champions of this sport don't really have to face a very diverse group of competitors.

Every time the Olympics come along, I anger all of my (mostly female) colleagues by complaining that the Olympics have gotten too big, and they should be separated into two different events - one for the objective sports (that can be directly measured or won on time), and one for the subjective sports. That way the people who love the beauty of figure skating and gymnastics wouldn't have to watch a 10K running or cross-country ski race, and vice versa. Of course, I anger them because I tell them how unfair it is that they barely even show the last 100 meters of the 10K finals, but spend hours on rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming.

Olympic weightlifting is definitely a sport - no endurance skill to speak of, but speed, skill, explosiveness, plenty of power and strength. When you are done, you're either standing with a ridiculous amount of weight over your head, or you're not.

You guys all missed the "sport" of DARTS!!!

Where else can you drink, smoke, and compete at the same same time? And make more money than most top flight runners....