If you could create new Olympic Events...

[Bearas 542]

  On 8/26/2016 at 3:13 PM, JoshMartini007 said:

The race walk has always had people against it and the 50km is an easier target since it does not have a women's event. I would personally like to see a shorter distance. My high school events had 2km walks, though IAAF has had 5km events for younger people.

 

Canoe slalom is also an easy target, not very popular outside of Europe and requires a sport specific venue which costs the host money.

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Outside Europe? It is not even popular in  Europe except one region...  

[heywoodu 15,357]

  On 8/26/2016 at 11:58 AM, dcro said:

 

It's interesting how many people want canoe slalom and 50km walk out. The only events where Slovakia won gold

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I'm TeamHCKosice in this one. Remove the canoe slalom and especially the 50k walk from the program and I'll remove you from the program 

[heywoodu 15,357]

If you want to remove any canoeing, remove some sprint events. And possibly some rowing while you're at it.

[thiago_simoes 1,425]

  On 8/26/2016 at 7:00 PM, intoronto said:

 

I don't think a mixed artistic event would work, where would all the apparatuses fit?

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In many National Championships they set all the apparatuses together for men and women. Surely it would be very crowded, but it could work. A more extreme measure would be limiting men to compete on four events, with men and women sharing floor and vault. Then, they could keep Rings and High Bar for men to keep things exciting (very few people actually enjoy watching Pommel Horse and Parallel Bars). The only necessary adjustments would be regulating the height of the vault table for men and women, but this is quick and easy to do. If this is still unacceptable, just combining the best scores from the men's team competition with the women's team competition could provide good results. This could even be done during qualifications so the gymnasts would not need to compete another day.

If we take the top 2 scores for each men's and women's apparatus at the 2016 Olympics, we will have this:

 

USA 308.178
CHN 301.243
RUS 300.001
GBR 298.771
JPN 297.394
BRA 297.260
GER 293.685
NED 291.085
FRA 290.244

 

It would be great to see the US men winning gold after a great moment in Qualifications. China was consistent and would earn silver. Russia, despite some flaws would still earn bronze. Great Britain, Japan and Brazil would not be too far behind. Who knows what might happen if prior to the Olympics the teams decided to focus on two strong events aiming for a mixed team medal instead of three strong scores aiming for men's or women's team finals?

This could be exciting, and all the IOC needs to do is to count scores from Qualifications. 

[orangeman 2,027]

  On 8/26/2016 at 6:26 PM, Govind said:

 

I am not fan of Cricket/Baseball to be added to Olympics as it doesn't add diversity .. But Squash and Karate is good sport to be added

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Cricket and maybe squash add diversity, but I'm tired of hearing that baseball doesn't.  Somewhere else on here I showed how in the short amount of time baseball/softball were in the Olympics they had more regions represented in the semifinals than water polo or handball in the last 20 or so years (and it's only gotten more diverse since 2008).  And don't get me started on table tennis, which only holds a spot on the programme to hand China a chest full of medals.  Having said that, forcing host cities to build huge baseball parks is a bit unreasonable if they don't already have a baseball culture.  

 

Squash in, Table Tennis out.  

Synchronized swimming and boxing out, and all other sports where winners are predetermined.  

Nothing against karate, but there's enough combat sports.  

I don't think equestrian should be part of the programme, and with it modern pentathlon.

 

[Dolby 740]

  On 8/28/2016 at 12:30 PM, orangeman said:

 

Cricket and maybe squash add diversity, but I'm tired of hearing that baseball doesn't.  Somewhere else on here I showed how in the short amount of time baseball/softball were in the Olympics they had more regions represented in the semifinals than water polo or handball in the last 20 or so years (and it's only gotten more diverse since 2008).  And don't get me started on table tennis, which only holds a spot on the programme to hand China a chest full of medals.  Having said that, forcing host cities to build huge baseball parks is a bit unreasonable if they don't already have a baseball culture.  

 

Squash in, Table Tennis out.  

Synchronized swimming and boxing out, and all other sports where winners are predetermined.  

Nothing against karate, but there's enough combat sports.  

I don't think equestrian should be part of the programme, and with it modern pentathlon.

 

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I think majority of the users don't think baseball doesn't add diversity. The main issue a lot of users have with Baseball is clash with MLB and top players skipping the tournament. 

 

Regarding Cricket, though adding it will be hugely beneficial to India and I like the sport, I don't think it belongs in Olympics. Not enough good teams, problem of huge cost of stadium, harder for neutrals to understand and no surety of top players participating. 

[Jur 687]

Canoe Slalom is pretty much the only "exciting" olympic sport to this day. Can't cut that out.

Even if it's need a "big venue", with I don't think, every decent host city should be able to build one without problem. I mean, Rio women's K1 champion. Maialen Chourraut is from Basque Country, where there's not a single slalom canal, she learn in rivers.

[orangeman 2,027]

  On 8/28/2016 at 12:42 PM, Dolby said:

I think majority of the users don't think baseball doesn't add diversity. The main issue a lot of users have with Baseball is clash with MLB and top players skipping the tournament. 

 

Regarding Cricket, though adding it will be hugely beneficial to India and I like the sport, I don't think it belongs in Olympics. Not enough good teams, problem of huge cost of stadium, harder for neutrals to understand and no surety of top players participating. 

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I think the majority of users here don't think baseball adds diversity because a majority of users here are European.  But even then, the Netherlands and Italy have added to the global diversity in the last decade.  Sorry, it's hugely popular in the Americas and East Asia, and even to an extent in Australia.  But sure let's have water polo because 3 countries outside the Balkans play it.  This isn't against water polo, I'm just saying there are tons of sports currently in the Olympics that are much less global than baseball, but their popularity in Europe ensures their continued inclusion.  As I said, though, requiring a city like, say Paris, to build venues for baseball/softball is unreasonable.  And as you say, the lack of professional involvement is another concern.  Those are real issues, the sport itself not being global enough is not.  

 

Talk about not being global, China has won 53% of the available medals since Table Tennis was added to the Olympics, with Korea winning another 18%.  Only one other team has ever won a gold medal in the sport (Sweden in 1992).  The only reason other countries have won medals in TT is bronze for the team event, where China and Korea can only win one each.  That's just ridiculous.  The same amount of countries have won golds in women's hockey since 1998 as in all TT events combined - men and women's singles, doubles and teams- in the same time period (one gold by South Korea in 2004 in men's singles).  Think about that for a moment.  I say this as someone who lives in East Asia and has witnessed the 'passion' for this sport first hand: Table Tennis has no place in the Olympic Games.  

[Jur 687]

So, we take out Table Tennis because China is better than anyone else? Doesn't see to fair to me.

It's like taking out Basket because there's no way someone can beat US.

 

 

They've earn this domination.

[Quasit 865]

  On 8/28/2016 at 3:20 PM, orangeman said:

Table Tennis has no place in the Olympic Games.  

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Because you don't like China winning it?

They show the most amazing performances, similarly to the US teams in basketball.

Honestly, it's not surprising to me when I see non-Asians refering to table tennis as 'ping pong'.

 

I'd like baseball/softball to stay for longer, not just for Tokyo.

Edited August 28, 2016 by Quasit