gryffron wrote:MrFoolish wrote:It should take more than a level of skill to qualify it as an olympic event. Otherwise we might as well include snooker, darts and the potters wheel.
Sorry but dressage just comes across as a bit silly. And I fail to see what the horse gets out of it. We've stopped making animals perform tricks in circuses haven't we?
In order to qualify as a sport, a hobby or pasttime must meet both of the following 2 requirements:
1) Physicality. Participants must at least break sweat (on a cold day, sunbathing definitely does not qualify).
2) Objectivity. Whilst there may be an umpire to adjudicate fair play, they should not decide the outcome.
Quite a few Olympic "sports" fail the second test. Dressage may be the only one that fails both.
FWIW I think the Olympics should dump all the sports that have bigger international competitions of their own. Football, Tennis, golf etc. They just steal the publicity/limelight from the others.
That's your own definition, I suppose? I can break out in a sweat doing nothing
And what does physicality mean? Surely not just big chunky blokes? - and there's a spectrum on chunkiness from weightlifters to dressage which is still physical but more about subtle control. You can draw the line where you like - some might even go back to the original of the games and exclude most of the modern sports. Thoug, know some have even lobbied for darts.... As for "umpires" I think that dressage passes on that basis - it must be one of the most judged of sports as there are usually panels of expert judges around the arena of different nationalities. I'm not sure what the system is at the Olympics, but it would be normal to have them on all four sides so each judge gets a different perspective.
Arb.