This year, Olympic medals will be awarded for breakdancing, and it literally makes me sick to my stomach.
This year, Olympic medals will be awarded for breakdancing, and it literally makes me sick to my stomach.
This issue really evokes my emotions, because of how much I love sports. I think sports are a vitally important part of the human experience. I guess dance is, too, but we're not talking about dance, in and of itself.
Dance isn't a sport. Period. Ever. Nobody can change my mind about this. Dance is potentially expressive, beautiful, socially useful, entertaining, etc. But it IS NOT A FUCKING SPORT.
Only sports should be in the goddamned Olympics, and shoving non-sports into the mix is shameful and disgusting. It's a wad of spit in the face of every great athlete who has ever taken the field. It's a disgrace to the Ancient Greek tradition that the Olympics are attempting to continue.
I don't give a fuck that there are already competitions for breakdancing. Or ballroom dancing. People can hold competitions for whatever they want. I actually think competitions shouldn't be held for entirely subjective and artistic activities, but people can do whatever the fuck they want.
But not in the fucking Olympics. This shit makes me sick.
And before you start pointing out the other subjective, judged events that are already in the Olympics: THEY SHOULD ALL BE REMOVED, TOO. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. NONE OF THEM BELONG.
No more gymnastics (rhythmic or otherwise). No more figure skating and ice dancing. No more skateboarding. No more surfing. No more synchronized swimming. No more freestyle skiing. No more diving. No more BMX. No more ANYTHING that requires judging.
You might browbeat me into admitting that some of those subjectively judged activities are sports, but you will never convince me that they belong in the Olympics.
Olympic sports should be restricted to those which are determined by means of a clock, a measuring tape, the accumulation of OBJECTIVELY scored points, or a physical beating.
Even some of those should be on the chopping block. Some of the points-scoring events are too subjective. If a sport relies too much on fallible human judging, it should be excluded.
The vast majority of the events should be arbitrated only by the cold, merciless, absolute judgment of the clock or the measuring tape. Therein lies the truest purity of sport.
Honestly, the best thing to do would be to reset everything to the REAL tradition of the Olympics. Almost nothing, other than running, jumping, and fighting. With an absolute minimum of rules to get in the way, and all the athletes competing in the nude. Just sandals on their feet. No space-age materials to help anyone. Nothing for anyone to hide. Just human muscle and determination, on display at the greatest possible level.
But it's all a forlorn dream. Instead, we have to have our stomachs turned, as a bunch of revolting little shitheads wobble and headspin.
The ancient Olympians are going to be spinning in their fucking graves.
EDIT: YES, I AM AWARE THAT THE FIRST COUPLE MODERN OLYMPICS FEATURED NON-SPORT ACTIVITIES, LIKE SCULPTURE AND PAINTING. THAT DOESN'T CHANGE MY VIEW. INCLUDING ART IN THE MODERN OLYMPICS WAS A RIDICULOUS MISTAKE. JUST BECAUSE IT WAS DONE BEFORE DOESN'T MEAN IT SHOULD BE DONE NOW.
I kinda love how mad you are about this
It’s a disgrace to the Ancient Greek tradition that the Olympics are attempting to continue.
JUST BECAUSE IT WAS DONE BEFORE DOESN’T MEAN IT SHOULD BE DONE NOW.
That's a contradiction. Also, the ancient greeks didn't have the concept of sport were super into dancing - spartans especially - so this whole argument is void.
I'm sorry that something you say you enjoy (the olympics) makes you so angry.
First of all well done at posting an unpopular opinion. Are you aware how much you've contradicted yourself?
Whew, this left spittle on my screen from the sheer, unhinged rage of the typing :)
Legit though, solid unpopular opinion!
But dude, gymnastics is a core sport going back to the minoans. And there were trumpet competitions back in the older Olympiads. Trumpet champions existed, and were determined by judges.
Hate to break it to you, but as much as I also dislike subjective sports competition, the Olympians of old would not be spinning in their graved.
Now, I agree that there has to be some limit to what is and isn't an actual Olympic event. And I'm not a big fan of judged events in general; they should be demonstrations, performances rather than competitions because they'd be better that way, you'd see cooler shit being done by peak human athletes.
But you might as well insist that only men compete if you're going to try and use the pan Hellenic games as your standard.
My Olympic pet peeve is about how damn hard it is to find coverage of most individual sports. You might get lucky here and there seeing highlights of archery or biathlon, or stuff like judo. But they'll show entire soccer matches without cutting away for anything but commercials. That's infuriating to me. I'd rather watch hours of break dancing because it's at least about the athleticism of the competitors rather than some team where even the best individuals get over shadowed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herald_and_Trumpet_contest
In the 96th Olympiad (396 BC), beside the athletic and artistic competitions, the Herald and Trumpet contest was added, which was already a formal element of the Olympic ritual performed by the kerykes (heralds) and salpinktai (trumpeters). Winners were chosen by the clarity of the enunciation and the audibility of their voice or horn blast.
Also breakdancing is awesome. Hope they add beatboxing soon.
This is a very thorough and well thought out post.
I couldn't disagree with it more regarding the modern olympics (I think there's a lot of value in subjectivity judged sports as well as objectively judged), but I respect your reasoning, and would love to see a revival of the ancient olympics like you propose. So why not both? Keep the modern commercial games their own thing (because at this point there's too much money in it for anyone to stop it) but bring back the traditional Greek games.
Completely separate thought: which category does boxing fall into? Matches are often won through points given by judges. Actually that's the same with wrestling, a traditional olympic event.
Chill, dude
Good unpopular opinion! I'm skeptical the modern games/organization would survive if you tossed the judged events out though. And a quick search shows there were a few subjective events in ancient games, too. Maybe there's another organization with competitions that suit your interests better?
You do you, man, but I feel like getting this het up over a competition you'll never be involved in, have any control over, or be forced to watch, is kind of a waste of lifespan. Are you happier for it? Healthier? Wealthier? Kinda seems like it's just burning more than one second off your life per second for no benefit.
Also, tradition is just peer pressure from dead people, and they told me in school not to give in to peer pressure. We didn't have breakdancing as an event, and now we do. The only constant is change.
In the comments, you talk a lot about judges. So, baseball should be banned too, right? Since balls and strikes are a human call? And of course, they have to call people safe or out, sometimes determine if a ball actually left the park, etc.
And basketball, would every shot be worth the same number of points, since we don’t have judges to say whether someone was behind the 3 point line?
And any sports would be a free-for-all with no penalties? Since judges make those calls, right? Sure, you can call them umpires or refs, but they are still judges.
And fighting would require a complete knockout to win? What if someone lays down and pretends because they don’t want to fight any more? Who makes that call? You need to objectively knockout (or maybe you want killing?) to win. I’m just confused as to how that works without a judge.
Honestly, the *best* thing to do would be to reset everything to the REAL tradition of the Olympics. Almost nothing, other than running, jumping, and fighting. With an absolute minimum of rules to get in the way, and all the athletes competing in the nude. Just sandals on their feet.
OK I’m listening
I agree with this opinion.
Hah just do what I do and don't give a shit about the Olympics. Unless there's some really cool opening ceremony I'm not watching any of it. England had the best one I've ever seen.
Breakdancing has always been a competitive sport.
Yikes.
I'm going to choose to focus on your username and laugh. I dunno if you are that unaware, or incredibly self-aware.
Couple of questions… Why does it matter to you that some people consider it a sport? Does the very idea being contrary to your opinion, make the sports you consider as such any less sports? The first antique olympics had horse racing. Where does shooting, curling, archery, golf, equestrian, etc, fit in this definition? If no, why does dance bother you so much all of a sudden, and why not as much anger towards them?
What’s that “Ancient Greek tradition” you seem to want to protect the purity of, and why does or should it matter? There’s been events that were added, tested out, and many removed subsequently, throughout the olympics’ history. It’s not the first time some event doesn’t make unanimity as far as everyone liking the event. Some people threw a hissy fit when snowboarding and later skateboarding were included, for example. Who gets to decide if an event fits in there? Is the practice of trying it out and reevaluating next olympics that terrible?
It’s not like modern olympics are some sacred and pure untouchable event underlining human performance for the sake of it. Unless you've avoided the subject on purpose, which would be surprising considering your position here, the CIO itself isn’t made out of saints doing it all for the love of sports either…
You're an unhinged dipshit. Have an upvote.
I think it would be better to convey your disgust through interpretive dance - you might qualify for the Olympics and then go on to win gold!
I think bellringing should be an olympic sport just to spite you
You know, at least you were consistent in then going after all judged competitions.
Ok, boomer 🤣🖕🏽
Is it an actual event or is it just one of the fluff events that will only be done for this one year, like bowling in the '88 Summer Olympics? They do this kind of thing all the time and it's more like a half-time show event than part of the rest of the games and athletics.
Also: Isn't the ribbon a regular Olympic event in gymnastics? That shit is basically just dancing. Dancing is an athletic ability that sometimes even uses gymnastics and contortion. Certainly more athletic than bowling is (or even shotput and javelin throwing).
100% with you.
Judges should only exist to enforce rules were followed not interpret the winner.
You just about had me convinced until this
No more gymnastics (rhythmic or otherwise). No more figure skating and ice dancing. No more skateboarding. No more surfing. No more synchronized swimming. No more freestyle skiing. No more diving. No more BMX. No more ANYTHING that requires judging.
These are sports. They require judging, sure, but they also require significant human skill, strength, and talent to execute properly. Skateboarding for example requires balance, coordination, and leg strength, and Olympic Skateboarding requires you to be the best at those things (usually, anyway).
Thanks for the real unpopular opinion though!
How would you handle the juicing problem?
You just convinced me. Brilliant.
The Olympics succeeded in driving me away long before this bullshit. You couldn't pay me to watch any event.
[ 62% upvoted]
You might think that 38% of people actually agreed and downvoted, but it's astonishing how many people can't understand the simplest of concepts
Some of yous shouldn't be allowed on the internet 😂