One of the things I love most about the Olympic Games is the huge range of different sports it includes. I also really like that these categories are not totally fixed. The Olympic Committee meets once a year to decide if any events should be added to or removed from the games. With this in mind I started thinking about what other events should be included. The possibilites are pretty endless, although to be suitable for consideration, there are two criteria that I think and event would have to meet:
- It would have to be an established sport with its own existing competitions / championships. This would mean that there should be enough athletes from around the world who would want to compete at the Olympics.
- Debates about which sports should be included are unavoidable, as everyone’s tastes are different. Some sports won’t attract a mass audience, I don’t think that this means they should not be considered, but television ratings do have to be taken into consideration.
So with that in mind here are some of my suggestions.
Arm Wrestling:
Arm wrestling already has competitions all over the world. It even has weight classes just like wrestling. It’s already proven itself to be a crowd pleaser and gets a lot of coverage on sports channels.
Texting:
No, this one is not a joke. Texting already has its very own World Championships with over 6 million people competing for a place to see if they have the fastest thumbs on the planet. Learning to text that fast requires dedication, stamina and probably a sponsor to pay for your texting habit.
Pole Dancing
Pole dancing has come a long way in recent years and lost some of the stigma that it used to have. The level of strength, self-control, stamina and grace needed to pole dance should not be underestimated. Not to mention the nerve that it must take to hang upside-down using your feet. As you will see in the video some dancers use pole dancing poles that are over 10 feet high. There is already an online petition to get pole dancing into the Olympics that was started by the co-chair of the PFA and supported by X-Pole a leading brand of dance pole in the UK. The petition has amassed over 150k votes and while it is too late to get into the 2012 Olympics, Collette is hopeful that they will make it for 2020.
Sheep Herding:
One Man and his Dog used to be a regular on Uk television but alas it’s not considered prime TV anymore. It takes a huge amount of skill to control the dogs by the sound of a voice and whistled instructions which then have to guide sheep through obstacles.
If you think that sheep herding is old fashioned then meet sheep herding pong…
Parkour:
Parkour is a type of running where rather than running round an obstacle the runners vault, roll, jump and climb over them so that they can follow the most direct route. It is gaining in popularity and you can even take parkour lessons. If you are in any doubt about the level of skill needed for this sport, watch this video.
I am sure that there are a whole host of other sports that should be considered for the Olympic Games, but it takes a lot of time to get a sport though the red tape. In fact the shortest a sport has ever taken to achieve recognition has been six years, and that was more an exception to the rule than the standard. It may take time but the Olympics will continue to evolve with the times, who knows what we’ll be watching in 2020.
This article was written by Caitlin, a sports and dance fanatic, who when she is not twirling upside-down from her X-Pole Xpert, writes for poledancingpoles.info.