Sport, Stupid Sport, or Non-Sport?: Your Complete Guide to the 2024 Summer Olympics

ARCHERY: Sport

ATHLETICS (a.k.a. TRACK & FIELD)—all events except Race Walking: Sport 

ATHLETICS—Race Walking: Stupid Sport

• • • Any race with rules requiring you to intentionally hamper your locomotion is stupid (cp. SWIMMING)

“-BALL” events (Base-, Basket-, Foot- (a.k.a. Soccer), Volley- (even Beach Volley-), etc.), including those with equivalent devices in the playing thereof (e.g., Badminton, Hockey): Sport

BREAKING (a.k.a. BREAKDANCING): Come on, bro. 

CANOE—all events: Sport 

CYCLING—BMX Freestyle: Non-Sport (cp. GYMNASTICS)

CYCLING—race events: Sport

DIVING—all events: Non-Sport (cp. GYMNASTICS)

EQUESTRIAN—all events: Non-Sport 

• • • Regular old horse-racing would be Stupid Sport, “stupid” for relying on a device not moved/powered by the participant. (N.B.: All car races are Stupid Sport.)

FENCING—all events: Sport

GYMNASTICS—all events: Non-Sport

• • • No athletic endeavor with subjective criteria for success is Sport. (N.B.: So-called “Artistic Gymnastics” is doubly Non-Sport.)

GOLF: Sport (alas)

Hand-to-hand combat (e.g., Boxing, Judo, Wrestling): Non-Sport

• • • An admittedly controversial position, but because combatants are not required to go at it until one is objectively defeated (e.g., pinned, KO’d), therefore requiring judges to award points and declare a victor in bouts that go the distance, no such event is fully Sport. Additionally, cp. Race Walking, “intentionally hamper.” (Apropos, Mixed Martial Arts combat that allowed biting, eye-gouging, testicle-crushing, etc., and had no time/round limit would qualify as Sport.)

MODERN PENTATHLON: Sport (but see SHOOTING)

ROWING—all events: Sport

SAILING—race events: Stupid Sport (cp. EQUESTRIAN)

SAILING—style events (e.g., Windsurfing): Non-Sport

SHOOTING—all events: Sport / Stupid Sport

• • • A bit of a judgment call. The objective measure of success makes this seem Sport, but the reliance on a non-human-powered device (cp. note under EQUESTRIAN) imbues it with a bit of stupidity. (Contrast with ARCHERY, where the stored energy that launches the projectile is generated by the archer.)

SKATEBOARD: Non-Sport 

SPORT CLIMBING: Sport

SURFING: Non-Sport

SWIMMING—all race events where Front Crawl is disallowed: Stupid Sport 

• In terms of effectiveness, Front Crawl (see below) is the equivalent of normal running in track events—i.e., moving in whatever fashion enables you to most quickly cover the race distance. The International Olympic Committee would dismiss out-of-hand* the suggestion that the 100m Dash be joined by the 100m Backwards Dash, the 100m One-Legged Race, and the 100m Crabwalk*…and yet, there is Backstroke, Breaststroke, and Butterfly.

SWIMMING, “ARTISTIC” (a.k.a. SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING): Non-Sport 

SWIMMING—Freestyle events: Sport

• At the first modern Olympics in 1896, all swimming events were Freestyle, which means what it says: swimmers may employ any style they like, provided that (as with all swimming events). Colloquially, “Freestyle” is used as a synonym for Front Crawl (a.k.a. Australian Crawl). The only limitation on Freestyle events is the rule (common to all swimming race events) that competitors do not swim underwater for more than 15 meters after the start and at each turn. (Swimming underwater is more efficient than breaking the surface because it reduces drag, but after the 1956 Summer Olympics the < 15m rule was implemented due to competitors passing out mid-race due to oxygen starvation from swimming underwater too long.)

TRAMPOLINE: This is really a thing now?

TRIATHLON: Sport

WATER POLO: Sport

WEIGHTLIFTING—all events: Sport

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*We can offer no hypothesis for the existence of Race Walking.