Lavaine wrote: ↑Fri Jul 30, 2021 3:19 am
Definitely better as a highlight reel event unless you are a serious surfing fan.
An interesting point, and it sounds as though you get more free to air coverage in Canada and we are getting in the UK.
When I made that comment about enjoying so-called judging sports rather less, I certainly wasn’t positing any arguments as to which sports should or should not be included in the Olympic Canon. As Chris hints above, every sport has its fanatical adherents, and in all cases they have to put in a lot of time and effort to attain the levels they do, whether it’s sprinting or skateboarding, swimming or surfing and so on. I’m just watching a British girl doing trampolining; what she does looks amazing even if I don’t really understand it, and her face was a picture when she did what the commentators reckoned was a brilliant routine. [Edit, she got bronze]
As spectator sports go, I do enjoy the athletics, the cycling, the swimming, the rowing and canoeing, and quite a few others. The cycling thread would seem to suggest that some of our members are quite deeply into it as opposed to simply enjoying watching it. Equally we have long running threads on motor racing, which I can totally understand the attraction of but I’ve never really got into. I love watching golf, and have been very disappointed at the diminishing free to air coverage of the majors (I only really watch television if there is some good sport on, and I have no intention of subscribing to this, that and the other package - skinflint!). And I’m delighted to be taking up golf once again.
I used to enjoy playing tennis, badminton and squash socially – I was never very good – but I’ve never really enjoyed watching them.
I guess I was brought up on the major team ball games, like so many people in Britain. Football, rugby, cricket and hockey were always my thing. But they have their own continental and world Championships (as we have seen very recently) which are massive sporting events in their own right, so I think it’s good that other sports take more of a centre-stage position at multisports competitions like the Olympics.