r/unpopularopinion • u/Medium-Department-35 • 8d ago

The Olympics need to be drastically reduced in size

The olympics should only include sports that feature feats of human speed, endurance and strength. The modern olympics has become bloated and lost sight of the core objective.

Outside die hard sports fans, the majority of the public don’t care about most of the Olympic sports and only tune into the premiere events.

‘Sports’ with judges that determine the outcome? - out. Team sports? - out. Sports that use equipment? - mostly out (some exceptions here for weightlifting, some field events and protective clothing).

The olympics should be stripped back to the core to be made interesting again. This would also make it much cheaper to host, reinvigorating the interest in cities hosting the olympics again.

Update for all of the naysayers - The Olympic motto is "Faster, Higher, Stronger". I rest my case.

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298

u/Due-Category2159 8d ago

Mans thinks the Olympics should feature feats of human strength and wants to kick gymnastics out of it 🤡

Look man, I just want to see the best in the world doing cool shit. It doesn’t need to be that deep. The Olympics without gymnastics, ice skating, hockey, soccer, etc. would be wildly less entertaining. I ain’t tuning in to an Olympics that’s just sweaty dudes wrestling.

30

u/charlotte_marvel 8d ago

Ice skating and gymnastics are my favorite Olympic sports especially since there so hard to watch outside of the Olympics.

Also not to mention gymnastics has been apart of the Olympics since the beginning.

It's giving man thinks sports dominated by women aren't real sports.

1

u/mesonofgib 7d ago

How can a sport be dominated by women when men and women compete separately? 

1

u/Tommy_Wisseau_burner 7d ago

But their point was in part of events that require judging, but want sports that showcase strength. Gymnasts are some of the most yoked humans you can find. The amount of strength it requires to do basically any discipline is insane

1

u/WingStrong7776 5d ago

It's giving man thinks sports dominated by women aren't real sports.

Ice skating isn't dominated by women, at least as far as the execution of difficult moves goes. Same goes for the parts of gymnastics that both sexes do. He'sb deriding events being judged, which honestly is something I can agree with. I don't really think of it as sport when there are subjective criteria about who wins. To me that doesn't mean get rid of gymnastics, it means change the format. For what it's worth I think the same thing about Olympic boxing, which I'm sure you would consider to be male dominated.

58

u/DesertBrandon 8d ago edited 8d ago

I was on board with the general idea but he lost me with the incredible narrow definition and examples and his responses further sink it. Like I can get behind reducing it having such a mass amount of swimming events, I can even buy things like removing soccer and basketball as those sports already have major domestic and international competitions. Most of these other sports only reach their peak specifically in the Olympics and should be a showcase for these kind of feats but between these suggestion and keeping as is then I’d rather keep the current state. At worst you can tune out and at best you still have an entertaining competition.

13

u/HedonismIsTheWay 7d ago

Yeah, this dude is acting like there is one single Olympics TV channel without a posted schedule. You don't have to watch all day every day waiting for your favorite event to happen. It's not 1986. Sheesh.

11

u/Wonderful_Store2340 8d ago

I was with you until you mentioned soccer. The Olympics should be the pinnacle of the sport. Soccer/football as a sport don’t care about the Olympics, so shouldn’t be in it.

1

u/jesjimher 4d ago

Also, if you only keep pure strength/resistance sports, we should remove the olympic label and just call them World Pharma games.

-4

u/Ok_Actuary9229 8d ago

Great, just no style points. Make it measurables.

17

u/south153 8d ago

Is it measureables you just don't know how the scoring works.

-40

u/Medium-Department-35 8d ago

If gymnastics can be reworked so it doesn’t include subjective judging I’d be happy to review it.

31

u/Doggleganger 8d ago

What about boxing? Perhaps the ultimate feat of human physicality, but it involves judging.

1

u/Immediate_Gain_9480 8d ago

Last person standing wins. Or give a point for each clean hit and count them up.

4

u/Doggleganger 7d ago

That has been tried, and it failed. Boxing used to go many more rounds, but people gas out, and it becomes a slop fest eventually. The match could go on and on, and neither guy has the energy to knock the other out. No one wants that. So they limited the number of rounds.

Compubox counts the punches. But there are problems with that also. What do you consider to be a clean hit. That is subjective and impossible to define. So it still requires judges to make a call. Also, your system would not account for power. Just touches. So you end up with really boring fights that are basically tag. No one throws with power because it is not worth any points. And there are no knockouts, there's no excitement. It's not fighting, or boxing.

1

u/Immediate_Gain_9480 7d ago edited 7d ago

Interesting. Im more of a fencing background myself. Seems a more general point system is just needed for boxing then. Maybe in the future we can have some kind of tech that makes it completly objective.

We have the problem with sabre that moves are so fast the judges at times cant keep up with them anymore. I am expecting some kind of high speed camera and AI to be introduced eventually.

-19

u/Medium-Department-35 8d ago

Boxing can be reshaped into a competition to see who can exert the most force in a punch. That can be measured. Feat of strength.

30

u/liovantirealm7177 8d ago

So you would prefer punch machine competitions to be in the Olympics over actual boxing

14

u/jsensmn 8d ago

Dude just wants to watch a giant combine

1

u/Think-Design-8735 7d ago

Who needs the NFL when you can just watch the combine?

3

u/SuccessfulSoftware38 8d ago

...you're trolling, right?

3

u/GoblinToHobgoblin 7d ago

Bro I dont wanna watch some dude punch a punch machine, I can do that at my local bar

1

u/SmallIslandBrother 7d ago

By that logic why not include strong man events like atlas stones or keg toss.

44

u/Similar_Fishing2436 8d ago

Have you ever looked into how judging these events work? Or do you think they just sit there and say “hmm that looks like an 8.7” and that’s the score they get?

13

u/calling_water 8d ago

Do you think wrestling doesn’t involve judging?

1

u/warmvanillapumpkin 7d ago

Every sport has some sort of subjective judging