mpjmcevoy

I merely meant even up the number of events for men and women - I was not making any comment on the hyperandrogenism/intersex/transsex debate!!

...Cont'd Open Water swimming No changes except tighten up the officiating Water Polo Reduce the men's field from 12 to 10, increase the women's field from 8 to 10 - total change in athletes, nil Synchro swimming Remove from the Games; already difficult both as a judged sport, and a single gender sport, it's also too heavily into the 'art' element rather than the 'sport' - judging is one thing, artistic impression is another *Addition* : High Dive - outdoor super high platform The diving equivalent of the open water swim, a relatively small field of 24 athletes, 12 men and 12 women, could provide an extraordinarily visual spectacle - no synchro, no team, just 12 divers per gender doing 5 dives. the 24 athletes could be found using only a fraction of the places previously used in synchro swimming, so aquatics would be introducing gender neutral, televisual event, and still 'saving' athlete numbers. Plus, inexpensive to stage. Basketball. This is tricky. Possibly the most predictable event in the Games, the sport is widely popular, yet at elite level completely concentrated in one country - see also Baseball, except worse. Unlike Football, however, the event is taken seriously. My suggestions : Reduce fields by two teams to ten, and have a single table format, leading to a 'league stage' of 9 matches, and a staggered 6 team playoff - 3 v 6, 4 v 5 - w1 v 2, w2 v 1 - w1 v w2(gold/silver), l1 v l2(bronze) - the 'athlete saving' (24 ballers per gender)to then be moved to the following: *Addition* - Basketball 3 x 3 I think this addition, along the same lines as Beach volleyball and rugby sevens, appealing to the Urban roots of the game - i..e played on a concrete half court, short sharp timeframe, possibly in a pretty open 'street' venue would do more for the sport than anything else. 12/16 teams of three per gender, soaking up the 24 athletes released by the team reduction in the full court version, and a relatively small number (24) of additional athletes. Badminton Replace group stages in the individual event with a repechage system. Slight reduction in numbers in the individual events from 41/40 as in Rio to a straight 32, 32 (saving 17 athletes) Boxing : Addition of two women's weights, reallocation of qualification places as follows Rio was : Men 22 26 28 28 28 28 28 26 18 18 Women 12 12 12 Total 286 Should become Men 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 16 16 Women 12 12 12 12 12 Total 284 Fairer, but no extra athletes needed - also 24 is just more sensible in straight knockout numbers than 28 Baseball/Softball No re-entry until MLB accepts and co-operates. Their refusal makes a mockery of the coming tournament tbc....

One has to remember that the Olympics cannot realistically be about only minority sports, because the huge casual fan-base that justifies the TV rights millions that fund said minority sports is hugely boosted by the 'popular' sports. an example is the golf, which was a shambles in terms of getting the best male players in....but had HUGE viewing figures, both in Golfing countries, but also in other places. Justin Rose, a previous major winner who won the men's event (and rightfully so, he and Steenson having backed the event to the hilt were worthy medalists) has stated that he did the Olympics knowing there was no money in it, for the glory and the atmosphere...but then said he was stunned when his agent told him he had more big international sponsor interest in 48 HOURS after the Olympic gold than in the TWO MONTHS after winning the major (the US Open). That's the Olympic global impact - even the refusniks like McIlroy have blatantly admitted they got it hopelessly wrong - just like Tennis, as I predicted, within 8-12 years (2-3 cycles) the Olympic Golf will be considered second only to the Majors, and up there with Ryder Cup. Football falls in the same issue, but I think Rugby has shown a way out. The Sevens was a HUGE success, and I suspect will be in the Games for decades to come - so concise, so exciting, so cheap to stage, small teams...perfect. Beach volleyball too. So yes, the football tourney is neither fish nor foul, on the mens' side - I'd leave the women's as it is, it's respected and loved, but I think there's a huge argument for the introduction of Futsal instead of the 11 a side game for men - it would be the elite of that form of the game, smaller teams so fewer athletes to house and feed, and much quicker to run As for the rest, well, my 2p/2c/ 2 drachma/2 rupees: Archery - reduce individual fields to 48 from 64 by removal of the third archer from the teams (12 per gender) and another 4. So instead of 12 x 3(36) + 28 x 1(=64, repping 40 countries), you have 12 x 2(24) + 24 x 1 (48 repping 36 countries). Introduce a sudden death repechage round after first round of individual events - so 48 becomes 24 - the 24 'losers' go into 8 3-archer sudden death matches, 8 winners join earlier 24 to make a 32 archer second round and then knockout - end up with exactly same number of matches per event as we currently have (32+16+8+4+2+2) becomes (24+8+16+8+4+2+2) Then convert the two team events, into a single, mixed gender event with 4 archers, 2 per gender, per team. once can either keep the four seed bye system or introduce another version of sudden death repechage - 6 first round matches, 2 three team sudden death repechages for the losers, followed by quarters, etc. The big advantage of repechages is every archer gets guaranteed two matches, while still maintaining a strong peril element. So we end up with 3 events instead of four, but every archer still with the chance to win 2 golds, and 96 archers instead of 128 (a saving of 32 athletes, which can then be redistributed to other sports, or even used up by Archery in another form of the sport, such as Field or 3D archery - personally, I'd redistribute) Athletics The big beast, with over 2000 athletes per Games. Hard to know where to slice and dice here, but here are a few suggestions. 1. Regularise the gendering in the walks, preferably with the removal of the 50k men's event. 2. A maximum of two per nation in the field events. 3. A significant reduction in Marathon and 100 metre fields. Aquatics Swimming - number 2 only to the Athletics, but again some pruning should be possible. The fields of the 50 m freestyle are far too big. The mixed gender medley relays work exceptionally well at World and continental level - may be worth adding if it can be done with no extra numbers of swimmers. Perhaps, dare I suggest, a super maxi event involving 8 legs - 4 men, 4 women, all 4 strokes - although the two backstroke legs may prove an issue here. Consideration to be given to making the 200 'stroke' events - back, breast and fly, into 400 metre, genuine endurance events...too many athletes find the 100, 200 double too easy, and it leads to swollen medal tally's as compared to other sports - make the distinction between speed and endurance within stroke bigger. Diving We could shave down the individual events by about 4 divers each, and perhaps consideration could be given, as in the synchro events, to a one diver per event maximum. One should probably be able to carry over your first round score into the semi - and totalise them rather than blanking slates - because the Tom Daley situation (aceing the first round with vast score, only to bomb out in semi) seemed a bit silly to be honest. The addition of a mixed gender team event might be fun, on the proviso it required no extra divers and used only already qualified ones - 2 dives per diver, 1 male and 1 female platform, 1 male and 1 female springboard. May require a certain jiggering around with qualification to ensure X teams can field, but again, no increase in overall numbers - and a team aggregate event of individual divers would be a completely different test than synchro. In short, I think it should be perfectly possible to have 9 events instead of 8, AND increase podium diversity while actually marginally reducing numbers. TBC....

I wouldn't really be for removing any events per se, although a few clever amendments could make some - 'painless' reductions. For example, instead of rotating the 6 team fencing events, make all team fencing mixed gender events (2 men, 2 women), so you only need 3 team events, and only 2 men, not three and 2 women, not three, for those teams...so every fencer still has the same number of golds to go for (1 indy, 1 team) but noone loses out because their team event is on an off year, and we have one less event. Do the same with Archery. Do the same with table tennis. Hey presto, you've saved three events and about 40 athletes I would actually be for adding events, so long as you don't have to add athletes - if you cut 20 from the road races, you could easily put that twenty into the velodrome and restart the blue riband events, Indy pursuit and Kilo, and even points race. Most of the world class guys will already be there, so you only need a tiny handful more to cover. The BMX races should be 6's not 8's for pure safety reasons 32 men, 16 women should become 24 men 24 women , and BMW time trial should be added as a stand alone event with the same athletes. Another basic rule is - if you're going to build a venue, get the use out of it. Including the Slalom course and the velodrome I cannot for the life of me understand the mentality that only cares about team sports - they use more athletes for less reward than the other sports, and yet exclude 200 countries from the outset. They are assuredly NOT the 'best sports', and I can't really take that idea seriously. If you want that kind of saturation, watch a world cup, not the olympics. I'm bemused by the addition of Karate, at least in the form included - Kata?? Seriously, phantom pretend fighting? As an olympic sport?? Even the Kumite event don't seem to actually involve striking the opponant, which seems to render it all fairly meaningless as far s martial arts and combat sports go.