Berty wrote:
Put XC in the Summer Olympics, but do it on the first day. That gives everyone doing the 5000 and 10000 about a week to recover and gives the marathoners close to two weeks before their race.
Plus, it gives us something to watch early on other than boring swimming.
Also, set it up like this:
each nation that qualfies gets to run 7 individuals.
5 of these members have to be also representing your country in one of the track and field events or in the marathon.
The other two can be running only the XC race.
They would need to come up with some qualifying standard to limit the race to the just 10-15 countries.
No individual runners from countries that can't qualify a team.
No individual medals.
Putting XC in the summer olympics would just create an incredibly watered down level of competition in the XC event. Think of all the Galens that wouldn't do it for fear of getting injured before their main event on the track?
Maybe put XC after track but that would require a total overhaul of the Olympic Schedule.
It would be really cool to see XC in the winter olympics, but to be honest, it doesn't really fit. Every single sport in the winter olympics consists of SLIDING on ice or snow in some fashion. Yes, we all know there can be plenty of sliding in XC races, but that is ultimately not the point of the sport.