By all means, drop Greco-Roman (bit of a pun there I think). However Freestyle wrestling is the simplest sport in the world. "Pin your opponents shoulders to the ground to win,". Easy! Equestarianismjism is boring, dry, and very dull. And also very very elitest, it's not a sport where anybody can participate. “I swear it upon Zeus an outstanding runner cannot be the equal of an average wrestler.” Socrates On ZEUS DAMMIT!
They only watch it because it is on TV - no one watches wrestling because it isn't It's a self-fulfilling prophecy and its a joke
so you're saying that because you see many trampoline injuries and there's trampoline clubs in swindon, that trampolining is bigger worldwide than basketball? that's a pretty big stretch.
Merged. I didn't notice that someone had started a thread in the wrong sub-forum. Sorry about that! :hat:
Every single wrestling match was televised here. Indeed coverage of the Olympics was unfailingly excellent. People watch equestrianism because they like equestrianism.
Who knows, maybe now that wrestling is take out of the olympics we will see a positive change in the judo rules. Oh my gosh I hope this happens!
I was thinking that, it renders many of the recent rule changes (or at least the stated reasons for said rule changes) pointless. Also what effect will it have on wrestling?
Lots of working class people ride, indeed if you listen to some of the post event interviews some of them are far from social elites.
emphasis mine. Most of them are very upper middle class/aristocratic. It is no coincidence that two members of the British royal family are equestrian olympians. Also - I don't consider anything a sport when the animal does most of the work.
They put on extra channels for the Olympics, BBC Olympics 1-9 and HD counterparts. TBF they didn't advertise them well enough as plenty of people didn't seem to realise until halfway through.
The thing is though...should the Olympics reflect what is popular or what is long standing, traditional and "sporting"? Wrestling just seems like it should be part of the olympics like running, jumping, swimming, throwing stuff and hitting each other. It's a primal activity.
So non on regular digital then? Like I said there was barely a mention of ANY combat sports in the two weeks I was there
You could watch most of it on regular digital tv iirc, i didn't have a problem tuning into the judo or the sailing (can't say i tried to watch the wrestling)
As it was BBC I assumed it was on freeview, I don't know anyone who complained they couldn't see it. I watched both types of wrestling, Judo and TKD on them. The beach volleyball marathons were the best though
However, so are many of our Olympians. One of the worrying statistics from the olympics was the disproportionate number of privately educated medal winners on team GB. It's a wider issue for access to sport in general, probably coupled with the massive drain football has on working class male athletes.
meh! To be honest I am tired of the Olympics ruining sports either by causing weird rule changes or getting people so hyped up that they will do almost anything to win (including damaging themselves with whatever happens to be popular for this generation). The wrestling at the games was not very good to watch. The new rules about who started in which position during the match were stupid as they encouraged stalling from whomever had top position first. Frankly I couldn't be bothered to sit through much. I must say that Olympic judo wasn't any better. I stopped watching TKD after that guy beat the stuffing out of the ref in Beijing :' S. Don't really care anymore about an event that seems to ruin sports. As FOD said... give the krotty guys a chance to shoot themselves in the foot and see where that goes. I also think that the wu shu offerring of yet another dance competition is another waste... Somebody point me in the direction of the weight room :' P LFD