2020, uh, 21, uh, who knows Tokyo Olympics thread

There are so many things in the Olympics that have no business being in the Olympics.
If winning an Olympic gold wouldn't crack the top 3-4 in importance/prestige, it probably doesn't need to be an Olympic sport.
Most that come to mind are the team sports, but put tennis and golf in there, too.

 

Jade Carey’s family hates America because they are using the flag as a tablecloth

 

This was fun.

How Good Was That Skateboarder's Kickflip? You Be The Olympic Judge.

 

@WriteThinking I would totally tune to a channel where your mom is doing PBP on sports she has never watched before now.

 

It really was entertaining.

She was even giving opinions on, well, the guys' looks . (Yeah, she still does that, occasionally. No prude, my mom! I'm probably more of one than she is).

Her opinion of Nyjah Huston: "Gee, now, he's a pretty nice-looking guy -- but I don't like all the tattoos he's got all over his neck! Why do people do that to themselves?"

(Sorry, I decided to leave that out of the previous post, mostly because I was conscious of how long it was getting.)

 

The people in those sports disagree, strongly.

 

Yeah, that's why the best of the best have turned out for the Olympics.
Golf: All four Majors, Ryder Cup, TPC, heck, the Greater Greensboro Open is bigger than the Olympics.
Tennis: All four Grand Slams, Davis Cup
Road Cycling: All three Grand Tours, the spring classics, world championships
Basketball: March Madness, NBA Finals, ACC tournament, any random Carolina non-conference home game
Men's soccer: there's a reason they play U-23s.
Rugby: World Cup, Tri-Nations, any match between Australia vs. New Zealand

 

Never watched a Portland game?

 

Dunno. Still looking at that other clip where the guy kinda messed himself up. Cannot ... look ... away ...

 

My feeling is that the team sports -- particularly the commonly followed ones with large fan bases -- are less compelling as Olympic sports for just exactly that reason.

We always cite how the Olympics shines a spotlight on the less-known and less-recognized sports "every four years," etc. They only become common and better-known at all during any Olympic cycle. It's their time for those sports to be "special" to a broader, wider audience, and the Olympics really do make that happen.

The spotlights for sports like basketball, baseball and the like, meanwhile, are clearly elsewhere, like in the NBA playoffs/finals, the World Series, the Grand Slam events, etc. Those sports are more special during those times/events than at the Olympics. With these sports at the Olympics, the special-ness is not in the sport, because it is already widely known/recognized; it is in the actual Olympics event itself.

I hope this makes sense.

The experiences for Olympic competitors in team sports probably take a more individual, personal turn, for maybe the only time in their careers (even if the athletes might not admit that, or put it quite that way). In other words, instead of the focus solely being on the "team," there is a desire to just experience the Olympics themselves, for themselves -- a personal highlight, even if they are competing in a common team sport.