One of the original sports of the Olympics, and I’m talking about the ancient Olympics, has been killed, apparently because it’s not TV sexy or has a big corporate sponsor.
Meanwhile, BMX biking, beach volleyball, et all, are all worthy of the gold.
I’ve been saying for 20 years that the Olympics are fucking corrupt and a joke.
I tried to pitch Juan Antonio Samaranch on nude Greco-Roman wrestling in 83, but the homophobic bastard thought I was hitting on him and never gave the idea a fair shake.
That’s just really sad. Perhaps they need to do what beach volleyball did to get TV ratings friendly.
"Women must compete in bra-style tops and bikini bottoms that must not exceed six centimetres in width at the hip "
BMX biking is in the Olympics? It may not be tv sexy but speed walking is!?
As I used to say at some other place: “Ah, the Olympics. Athletic elitism wrapped in hollow nationalism drowned in corporate homogeneity. How long till they’re over?”
And then I was banned.
The modern Olympics has disgraced itself so many times in so many ways since its founding it’s hard to care any more what they do. I suppose they replaced greco-roman with synchronized rhythmic something-or-other; or perhaps yet another professional team sport.
Next step is to offer medals directly for cash in an auction, like Google Ad Words search term bidding. Whichever ten events make the least money is out next time around to be replaced with something marketing thinks will earn out better.
I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what got you banned.
Freestyle wrestling still in?
Consider just how blatantly corrupt the badminton competition was at the London games. How many teams got kicked out for rigging the results? Yet it makes the cut? Mustn’t lose viewers in Asia.
What really should have been out is “modern” pentathalon, which was the frontrunner for getting axed. You can make at least pragmatic arguments for BMX biking and beach volleyball.
Riding, pistol shooting, fencing, swimming, running. There is nothing modern or sexy about the modern pentathalon. It’s elitist and probably has a few hundred practitioners, at best. Moreover, it doesn’t have the weight of tradition or the Olympic ideal of the unaided human form, as wrestling does. I can’t imagine it’s a commercial hit, either.
Talk about B.S. and dumb decisions.
As I understand it they dropped freestyle too. This is sort of strange for me, I was a wrestler from 6th grade through HS, placed in state and won regions and districts, my son is a freshman wrestler at his HS and I love watching his matches…yet I’m not feeling the outrage about this that I feel I should as a member of the wrestling community. Frankly, Greco roman is a style I never entered in, and freestyle is different enough from US HS and collegiate rules to turn me off. I should be one of the ardent viewers of Olympic wrestling, but it does nothing for me and I barely watch it. I’m a horrible person.
But you were hitting on him.
That didn’t stop it from being an awesome idea.
[I]First they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
[/I]
Kind of over the top in relation to sports, but…the title of this thread is incorrect - Olympics ousts wrestling. All of it.
Yet another one for the Fuck The Olympics file.
First baseball, now Greco-Roman Wrestling? Is nothing sacred anymore?
— Alan
Fuck Olympic baseball. But golf in the Olympics? Really?
I’d rather have Gorf.
Not sure if serious…
Okay, I get the sarcasm, too lazy to get the gif out.
The next Olympics is gonna be called on account of thunderbolts.
This was a surprise to me when I heard it today. Not a wrestling fan but its like one of the old school olympic sports, they were doing this shit in the first olympics. Why get rid of it?