Why are olympic sports still segragated into genders?
Why can’t we have co-ed hockey teams, and track and field.
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Because women and men do not have equal physiques.
@talljasperman Because men and women are different in so many ways sometimes it’s just not compatible.
Tennis had mixed doubles in London 2012. That’s a great game, too bad the big names won’t play.
Thinking of other possibilities…hmmm. Relay races would work. Both running and swimming. That would be awesome!
Women and men aren’t equal in terms of physical ability. There are some sports such as sailing and equestrianism where men and women compete on equal terms, but not many. If they were mixed, men would win nearly every time.
Imagine men mixing it with the sychronised swimmers…actually, no don’t :(
@ucme Actually, the best synchronized swimmer in the US is a dude. He swims with our Olympic team a lot, and there was quite a movement for a while to try to make Olympic synchro co-ed. This never happened because of the differences in physiques, but nevertheless – having dudes around is awesome for synchro; y’all make things like lifts so much easier. Interested guys are highly sought after critters, just like in cheerleading and ballet.
And your own country is mounting what seems to be the first bid to enter an all-male synchro team. It kind of pisses me off that they’re not letting them compete. If it’s all men, I can’t see how they would have an advantage. Here is the article.
@wildpotato A male synchro swimmer is the very definition of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As if the “sport” isn’t crap enough.
@talljasperman – I would be interested in hearing you make the case for why men and women SHOULD compete against each other.
We’ve seen several rational reasons why they shouldn’t. Can you offer reasons why they should?
@ucme Wow, what a douchey thing to say. Soccer is for jackasses, by the way.
@hugelyoffendedone Not douchey at all, that pathetic spectacle should have no place in a global sporting event & gets all the crap it deserves, that’s just simple fact.
Oh & jackass soccer, hmm…try again.
@ucme I miss danger mouse. That show was great!
@talljasperman Football could be fun if not distracting… Tackle! Woo hoo!!!
@DWW25921 In that case I feel compelled to commend you on your exquisite taste in animated tomfoolery.
@ucme Excellent show! You remember banana man? :) Good times…
@DWW25921 Haha, yeah, then there was SuperTed, although he was a bit of a prick to be fair.
Penfold is my absolute all time hero.
I don’t get how synchronised swimming is in the olympics anyway. It’s not a sport, it’s a performance art.
However I do agree that DM is made of awesomeness.
@downtide Try it for 10 minutes then tell me it’s not a sport. We practiced 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. Half that time was just laps for strengthening and cardio. On top of that, we were required to swim a mile each week and stretch enough, 24/7, to always be able to do center splits and other such feats of flexibility. We did all that in order to be strong enough in the arms to scull our bodies on the surface while being flexy enough to sling our legs around, and also support ourselves upside down while doing the same. We had to be srong enough in the legs to support ourselves while doing shit with our upper bodies halfway out of the water. Ever try the lifeguard test, eggbeatering with a brick in each hand for two minutes? Or water polo – ever try moving around with the ball? Pfft, easy peasy. Now try these things while keeping yourself out of the water to the waist for two minutes. Then drown knowing that synchronized swimming is a goddamn brutal sport.
I am obviously biased, but y’all are obviously uninformed. Here, have an article.
I will concur that it’s very physically demanding. So is ballet dancing and the flying trapeze, but they’re not sports either.
@downtide Seems like what’s a sport and what’s not is largely a matter of opinion. For example, I’d call golf more of a performance art and less of an athletic event than synchro.
The reality, though, is that both fall under the description of what is technically a sport – as does trapeze and ballet.
Those who run the Olympic know what many try to deny; men and women are different, and not just physically. There are things men do better overall than women, and vise verse. Call it natural selection, evolution, Intelligent Design, men and women are different, otherwise we would have asexual beings and reproduction can come by way of pods, eggs, or some method where neither sex carries the offspring.
I think for me, what makes a sport a sport is objective competition. Strongesst, fastest, highest, furthest, etc. Things that can be measured or counted completely objectively. But marking something like synchronised swimming relies on subjective decisions by the judges, based on the way it looks. It’s not objective at all, and this is demonstrated every time a judge from a country in political tension with the competitor’s country awards the competitor low points.
If it wasn’t subjective, they wouldn’t need that rule about disregarding the lowest and highest-scoring judges.
May as well call ballroom dancing or speed dating a sport…good grief!
@downtide Oh, ok then. That’s pretty arbitrary, but whatever. Guess you must disdain the gymnastics and figure skating competitions, too.
@ucme Ballroom dancing yes; speed dating no.
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