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2022-02-15

Are the Olympics Relevant Anymore?

There are 32 sports in the summer Olympics, 15 disciplines in the winter Olympics. I dare you to list them all without searching.

This year the winter Olympics is basically a propaganda campaign for the Chinese regime, and athletes have even been told to not say or do anything that can annoy the Communist Party.The last winter games were held in Sotji. Both these games were hosted at the cost of humans living nearby and at least the Sotji version was rampant with corruption. Wtf?

In 2032 the summer Olympics will be hosted by Brisbane. God knows why they're not re-using the old Olympic Park in Sydney instead. Is it even used for anything anymore? The games have at least historically meant spending huge amounts of money building stadiums that never pay off and are left standing more or less empty afterwards.

Is there still any glory in a sport being admitted to be in the games? Does anybody watch competitive rock climbing? Futsal?

I'm biased, being completely sports illiterate, but c'mon... Wouldn't it be cool if we scrapped the winter games and reduced the summer games to the original sports with some modern adaptations? And always hold them in Athens?

I propose these disciplines, in both male and female versions:

• Running: 100 m, 1500 m, and a marathon along the original route.
• Jumping: long jump, high jump.
• Wrestling. I don't know what the different kinds of wrestling are, but pick one or two of the biggest.
• Boxing.
• MMA, as a replacement for the primitive martial art pankration.
• Horse racing. I feel that we can remove the chariot racing of old.

As for other sports, do they have to be in the Olympic Games? What's stopping them from having their own World Championships instead? Do we have to have a big one-up-manship event for all sports under the sun? Let go of the hubris and pretentious national boasting which so many authoritarian countries are fond of. Keep it simple and focused.

-- CC0 Björn Wärmedal