What is a sport?

“What are all these random sports?” My friend asked, about a week into the 2021 Olympics. “There’s track cycling, and rock climbing…”

“That’s a new one for this Olympics. Also, I don’t think a lot of these are sports,” I said. “Why is synchronized diving a thing?”

“That’s been an Olympic sport for a while,” she said.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it a sport,” I replied.

As the Olympics have been going on, I’ve been reflecting on this question and polling different friends on what they thought — “Which events should not be an Olympic sport?”

“Breaststroke,” Malik said. “And the equestrian events. I kid you not, there’s an event where you’re judged on how good you look while riding a horse.”

That sounded ridiculous to me, but apparently dressage is a thing and has been an Olympic event since 1912. Either way, I wholeheartedly agreed with Malik…why are equestrian events still in the Olympics? It feels outdated and irrelevant in 2021, and as such, should be eliminated from the Olympics. (Plus, I don’t think animals should be involved in any Olympic events.)

Which brings me back to why I don’t think synchronized diving should be in the Olympics, or more broadly, my completely objective criteria for what should be a sport in the Olympics:

1. Seems obvious, but a sport should require physical training and exertion. (Discuss: is golf a sport? Like, in general.)
2. It is a thing that people do. This to me is where synchronized diving falls short (pun intended): I just don’t think many people actually do synchronized diving, and it seems like a contrived sport for a select few. Do I enjoy watching it in the Olympics? Yes, but it feels like a slippery slope where you can then justify adding synchronized events for all the other “sports” out there (synchronized trampolining could be just as entertaining to watch).
3. It is a thing that people regularly compete in, and there’s a governing body that agrees on how the sport is judged/scored. (Is skateboarding really an Olympic sport? Color me skeptical.)
4. The best athletes in the discipline are competing at the Olympics, and it is widely agreed that the Olympic gold medalist in the discipline is the best in the world. By this measure, I think we can safely remove tennis, men’s soccer, and golf from the Olympics (among others).
5. It is not ridiculous. While I don’t really need this criteria to disqualify speed walking as a sport in the Olympics (see criteria #2), I do think speed walking deserves its own criteria based on how ridiculous it is as a “sport.” For the longest time I had heard it was an Olympic event, but I’ve always dismissed it as an urban legend. It was only this year that I confirmed that yes, people do actually compete in race walking (as it’s officially known), and yes, there are judges on hand to disqualify people that accidentally lift one foot off the ground while the other foot is still mid-air.

All joking aside, it is obviously easier to criticize the Olympics from the comfort of my own home rather than to train for any of these Olympic “sports”…although who knows, maybe one day that, too, shall become an Olympic sport.