Which Sports have International Competitions more Important than Olympic Games?

[Vojthas 949]

For sure football (at least the men's event), tennis and golf. These are those sports who have more important competitions than Olympics (what hurts me) and it is seen in the attitude of athletes (in case of men's football it's the attitude of FIFA, which makes it junior competition instead of normal).

About rugby - it is sevens, which is less popular than fifteens. But for me it's ok, it's like introducing vaulting in place of dressage.

Boxing is for me the second sick sport in the Olympic programme (after weightlifting). No other sport has so many IFs. In this situation we cannot say, who really is the best.

Road cycling - I would say that Olympics are not the most important race (what hurts me again), but in opposite to football, tennis and golf we can see the best athletes racing for it. It's like second World Championships, which I think is still less prestigous than TdF, Giro or Vuelta.

[heywoodu 15,997]

7 minutes ago, Vojthas said:

For sure football (at least the men's event), tennis and golf. These are those sports who have more important competitions than Olympics (what hurts me) and it is seen in the attitude of athletes (in case of men's football it's the attitude of FIFA, which makes it junior competition instead of normal).

About rugby - it is sevens, which is less popular than fifteens. But for me it's ok, it's like introducing vaulting in place of dressage.

Boxing is for me the second sick sport in the Olympic programme (after weightlifting). No other sport has so many IFs. In this situation we cannot say, who really is the best.

Road cycling - I would say that Olympics are not the most important race (what hurts me again), but in opposite to football, tennis and golf we can see the best athletes racing for it. It's like second World Championships, which I think is still less prestigous than TdF, Giro or Vuelta.

World champs in road cycling is definitely not as prestigious as the Grand Tours or the Classics (Flanders, Paris-Roubaix mostly), although being world champion is a lot more prestigious than Olympic gold  

 

As for football, it's quite logical. It's by far the biggest sport in the world and it's World Cup is, apart from the Olympics, arguably the biggest sports event in the world. There's no use in trying to 'beat' that importance and adding regular football to the Olympics makes no sense, because the calendar is already overflowing with matches. 

[Vojthas 949]

1 minute ago, heywoodu said:

As for football, it's quite logical. It's by far the biggest sport in the world and it's World Cup is, apart from the Olympics, arguably the biggest sports event in the world. There's no use in trying to 'beat' that importance and adding regular football to the Olympics makes no sense, because the calendar is already overflowing with matches. 

Then maybe there is no place for football in the Olympic programme? I think it should be the most important competition for everyone. If FIFA has their own big show, then what for do they need the Olympics? Maybe it's time to change it for futsal or beach soccer?

[heywoodu 15,997]

Just now, Vojthas said:

Then maybe there is no place for football in the Olympic programme? 

I've been saying that since the day I was born  

[Jur 689]

Surprised no one said boxing.

[heywoodu 15,997]

17 minutes ago, Jur said:

Surprised no one said boxing.

At least 4 people mentioned boxing  

[Dunadan 1,103]

39 minutes ago, Vojthas said:

Then maybe there is no place for football in the Olympic programme? I think it should be the most important competition for everyone. If FIFA has their own big show, then what for do they need the Olympics? 

 

Men's football doesn't need the Olympics...but maybe the Olympics need men's football for economic reasons (for example, about 20% of tickets sold in the last 3 Olympics were for men's football...4 millions tickets).

 

Now we can probably add to the list skateboarding, surfing, BMX freestyle...and all those X-Games events in which "performers" care more about their pants than an Olympic medal.

[Dmitry 92]

Do women's football WCh isn't better than the Olympic tournament?

And I think now we have men's ice hockey in this list too.

[Dennis 759]

On 20-6-2016 at 09:50, De_Gambassi said:

 

For some athletes, the biggest prize in their sport is not an option, so the olympics became their by default-objective. A cyclist like Tom Dumoulin is not going to win a GT anytime soon (even, if we've seen worse in cycling ) , but he makes a great deal of winning the olympics.

 

Likewise, a young polish rugby players is never going to win the 15 a side rugby world cup (it'm crushing your dream here I know ), but he might have a shot at participating to the Olympics and that objective might become his main goal.

 

It doesn't make the olympics the more important event of the lot, but simply the biggest event one athlete could successfully win/particpate to.

 

On 20-6-2016 at 10:59, heywoodu said:

Well yeah, there's a ton of cyclists who are among the best ever but still don't have a single chance to ever win a GT. Think of Cancellara, Sagan, Cavendish and so on. For time trial specialists (like Dumoulin), sprinters (like Cavendish) and one-day specialists (like Sagan, though of course he can sprint great too) winning a GT is not realistic, which also means winning a GT is not the biggest thing one can do in cycling unlike media loves to say  

 

Apart from that, I only remember Vino won the 2012 Olympic gold because of the controverse of him buying the gold medal, not because of the race itself. Tour de France (and in a smaller way the Giro and Vuelta) and especially the big classics like Flanders, LBL and Paris-Roubaix are in my opinion way, way bigger races to win. 

Not really contributing to this topic, but just wanted to highlight these comments, haha

Edited June 25, 2017 by Dennis

[heywoodu 15,997]

6 minutes ago, Dennis said:

 

Not really contributing to this topic, but just wanted to highlight these comments, haha