Sports at the Olympics are Getting Far Too Silly

Jorden

I’m such an Olympics fan that I end up planning my entire August and February schedules around what sport is on and when. If wrestling is on at 3 in the morning, you know I’m losing my mind over Jordan Burroughs. If swimming is on, I’m actually wondering how Ryan Lochte is doing. My family even had a joke, or a truth more like, that every Olympics I would choose a different sport and try to perfect it so I could be in the Olympics (I still have a pretty mean jump serve from a summer of practice). But you know what I’m never going to watch? Olympic Flag Football.

So when the Los Angeles Games Committee announced their slate for new sports to vote for Olympic inclusion, I genuinely thought I got got by the Onion.

These aren’t Olympic sports. They’re mostly sports, but not an Olympic Sport. Baseball, softball, and cricket come closer in the modern Olympic lens

I thought we crossed the sports Rubicon awhile ago when the IOC let Field Hockey in as an Olympic sports. We kept crossing over that river as new sports were added like: skateboarding, that speed rock climbing sports, and surfing. I know these are all Summer sports, but the IOC loves just adding more to the Summer Olympics. And I’m not going to come out and say these aren’t real sports. They are genuine sports, and they’re performed by real athletes. They’re just not Olympic sports.

Olympic sports are those that instill a sense of antiquity in how they’re performed. Weightlifting is something I imagine Romans doing. I can see the Greeks wrestling (or Judo too) in the nude. Hell I can even see a Goth doing that one Olympic sport where you ski and shoot. I can’t imagine a Celt playing flag football.

I used to work for a company that put together adult sports leagues, and one of those leagues was flag football. Look, I’m not saying it’s not a good thing that mid 30s office workers are getting out and being active. There used to be company teams and that seems vaguely good for camaraderie. But the guys who took it way too seriously always made me think this is all they have. When I see a guy ski jump to perfection and lose his mind in a maniacal way, I get it. That shits hard. The other is flag football, which is a glorified version of 2 hand touch. Glorified two hand touch isn’t an Olympic sport.

And there’s a reason i used the word “silly”. Silly is the best way to describe the i inclusion of Flag Football, Squash, and Lacrosse. Don’t get me wrong they’re still real sports , but it’s silly to put them in the same competition as something like the 100m sprint. They’re just in two different sport venn diagrams. Like watching a game of Swuash with the Olympic theme in the background feels like something they put on Rick and Morty when they’re right of jokes. (Don’t sorry I didn’t forget about “table tennis”).

I have a whole thing about baseball and softball and cricket, but that’s for a different blog where I include all the other major league sports being included in the Olympics. Soccer shouldn’t be there. That’s what the World Cup is for. The ’92 Dream Team is some of the most fun I’ve had watching basketball (the highlights). But now there’s a FIBA World Cup; stick to that.

I’m an Olympics purist and I’ll proudly admit it. Maybe I’m hating too much on flag football, but I don’t think so. Even Mahomes reuiniting with Tyreek to smoke some Lithuanian plumbers just doesn’t have that Opening Ceremony gene se qua I feel when I watch big meaty men toss hammers. I want prestige. not silly.

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