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“The olympics are OK—but they could be so much better”
This competitive fiesta needs updating, says writer David Thomas. So why don’t we dump some events, overhaul others, and make it a whole lot more exciting?
Let’s get rid of:
…Greco-Roman wrestling
The clue is in the name: “Greco-Roman”. Wrestling dates back to the very start of the classical Olympics, some 2,700 years ago. But if you were starting the Games today and looking for the best way to present fighting or wrestling, you’d leave this in the past.
...Synchronised swimming
Come on, this isn’t a sport. Putting on make-up, choosing a glittery swimming costume and smiling should be irrelevant to the Olympics. If you have this, you might as well have pole dancing, too.
...Dressage
It’s easy to appreciate a race or a gymnastic routine. But the subtleties of dressage are intended to show off a rider’s skill and a horse’s good training. It is, in other words, a dog show for horses. And although the sight of an immaculately dressed rider on top of a magnificent horse is pleasing, it’s as irrelevant to a modern sporting event as the sight of an owner walking round a ring with a dog on a lead would be.
...Football
Olympic athletes are supposed to be the absolute best in their field, and a gold medal should be their greatest sporting achievement. Yet the men’s football teams are composed of players under 23, plus three over-age participants—so many, if not most, of the game’s greatest stars will be missing. A medal, meanwhile, ranks fourth at best for a male footballer, after the World Cup, the Champions League and any of the major national leagues.
If football were to stay, it should opt for an intense and uniquely Olympian 20-minute-long, five-a-side format, following the example of rugby, which will return to the Olympics in 2016 as Rugby Sevens.
Let’s overhaul…
...Sprint cycling
On the face of it, cycling has everything you’d want—speed, excitement and athletic prowess. But the individual sprint is ruined by each cyclist’s desire to be behind the leader, in his or her slipstream, before the final dash. A race that should be about pace is thus incredibly slow for most of its length as the competitors jockey for position.
This is absurd. Usain Bolt does not spend the first 85 metres of the 100 walking slowly. Sprint cyclists should either be given a minimum time for their event, or race side-by-side along a straight track.
...Shooting
There may be something more boring to watch than a middle-aged man wear-ing spectacles firing at a stationary target, but I can’t imagine what it is. Instead, why not have team paintball fights that test shooting ability, tracking and camouflage? A long-range sniper contest (against dummy targets, of course) would also grab people’s attention.
And why not make console shooting games such as Call of Duty into Olympic disciplines? Former F1 driver David Coulthard has already raced a real Mercedes against PlayStation gamers driving the same car round the same circuit (virtually, in their case) at the same time—and he only just won. A contestant’s-eye view of the screen would make great TV.
...Tennis
Like football, this event needs something to make the Olympics stand out. So let’s apply the same abbreviation principle. If three- and five-set contests were replaced by three tiebreaks, spectators would see several super-fast matches in a single session.
Let’s reform the serve, too: either by limiting players to one, with no first-fault, or by moving the service line to a metre behind
the baseline, so serves are slower. That way, there’d be fewer points but longer rallies—a double benefit for the fans.
And why not try...
giving everyone the same equipment? It would revolutionise cycling, shooting, rowing and sailing, to name but four. In Beijing in 2008, swimmers who wore the Speedo LZR suit, which cut drag through the water, had a huge advantage over those who didn’t. It was banned subsequently. The alternative is state-of-the-art equipment available to all.
But, however you organise it, the Olympics are supposed to be a test of athletes, not technicians, in which the poor can compete against the rich. So let’s see who wins when they fire the same guns, ride the same bikes, row or sail the same boats, and hit with the same rackets!
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