random sports thought

While watching the olympics in Vancouver, veronica and I came up with some interesting questions and conclusions about sports. The first and most important question we spent a good 45 mins debating was who thought up these events. Not the normal events like running track, swimming, shot put or high jump… everyone wants to know how much farther they can jump or throw than someone else and everyone wants to see how much faster they are compared to another. These sports make sense, the fittest, the fastest and the strongest wins the medal. But then there are sports like the pole vault. Who thought up this as a competitive sport? I imagine that the person who invented this had a thought processes along these lines,
“I am going to run with a very long stick, shove it into a hole and hoist myself over another stick that is placed very high over my head. I am then going to try this and see how many other idiots I can convince to try and bet me.”
This man/woman must have been broke and needed a quick way to make money, so he gambled with his friends on something he knew he could do.
Then there is water polo. This sport is over 100 years old. After evaluating this sport during the semi-final game, US v. Hungary, it is basically soccer with your hands while swimming and being timed to make the goal before the shoot timer goes off much like basketball. Let me re-cap, we have soccer, swimming and basketball all combined into one sport.
And my favorite, rhythmic gymnastics. WHAT?? Ballet/twirling/flips… I am in no way saying that these men and women are not athletes. Its takes a lot of sweat, training and injuries to achieve this level of competition, all I am saying is what, exact ally, is the criteria of an Olympic sport? And if just any sport can be an Olympic Sport then I motion to include Skip-It as an official Olympic sport in the 2012 Olympics in London.