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OT: Pointless Olympic Sports

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Dogdeacon said:
Next time you are at the pool pick one average athletic person, if they are not a previous member of any swim team they are eligible for this wager. Then have them swim 4 lengths as fast as they can. The world record on 25M* pools has been under 50 seconds since the 80's so they gotta finish in 1:40. If you do this to even 5 people you are going to average 2 mins + and no one is going to get 1:40 especially since a lot of them won't even finish without stopping or going into something besides freestyle.

* I'm surprised but for pros the times are actually quicker in 25M pools, I assume its because of the speed of the Man from Atlantis.
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I'm with you on this one. We get a bunch of first-time triathletes at our open water group swim. Many of them are insanely fit. They can't swim freestyle for more than a minute or so before having to stop and either float on their back or do the breast stroke.
 
Dogdeacon said:
Then have them swim 4 lengths as fast as they can. The world record on 25M* pools has been under 50 seconds since the 80's so they gotta finish in 1:40. If you do this to even 5 people you are going to average 2 mins + and no one is going to get 1:40
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I did a quarter of it the other day. 21 seconds for the first length, starting in the water at the pool edge. That would extend to 84 seconds, or 1:24 except that my limbs would seize, my heart would stop, and I'd drown! I'll give it a shot next time I'm at the pool. For me it's more a question of lack of cardio than form or speed, I think. I'd guess that after a few dozen work outs I could get the cardio much better.
Thinking about it, the pros must swim that 1st leg in 10-12 seconds or something like that. Funny, I don't feel like a flopping imbecile when I'm swimming but I'm sure I must look that way to skilled swimmers!
 
Race walking, obviously.

I've never watched a second of handball, but Bill Simmons's column on it was entertaining.
 
alexrgct said:
I've never watched a second of handball, but Bill Simmons's column on it was entertaining.
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We spent a week in 7th grade gym class (2 periods) playing it. It wasn't tough to learn well enough to have a decent game. It's was lot of fun to play, except for the goalie.
 
BugsyCT said:
Equestrian shouldn't be in there - the horse is doing all the work.
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There have been some studies that showed jockeys are (pound-for-pound) the best athletes.:eek: And I've heard experts in equestrian talk about how difficult riding is on many levels.

My own opinion (of sports I've never experienced personally) is that it's almost certainly 10 times more difficult than you think. :D I remember going bowling for the first time in HS and thinking... what a waste of time... you get 2! chances to knock the pins over? How frickin' tough can that be? I realized the same thing when I went out for cross country... and years later when I took up cycling.:rolleyes:

Fishy said:
I have no problem with the equestrian stuff or archery or shooting - you can at least see where those sports have their origins. Synchronized anything has to go - two people doing the same thing at the same time is indefensible as a competition.

I get why baseball and softball are no longer included.
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Technicalities aside... baseball & softball have such large & storied histories, it's unbelievable those high-profile sports aren't represented in an event that purports to represent great sports around the world. :rolleyes: Even if they needed to use non-pros, the Olympics (continues to) lose it's reputation with me... smells of political BS.

Archery & shooting require extreme concentration, coordination, and skill.
 
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BugsyCT said:
Equestrian shouldn't be in there - the horse is doing all the work.
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I don't really care either way, but knowing someone who's been doing equestrian all her life, this is 100% incorrect. It's actually incredibly demanding physically to control the movements of a horse with your legs and stomach, which is basically what they do.
 
dapriest said:
I did a quarter of it the other day. 21 seconds for the first length, starting in the water at the pool edge. That would extend to 84 seconds, or 1:24 except that my limbs would seize, my heart would stop, and I'd drown! I'll give it a shot next time I'm at the pool. For me it's more a question of lack of cardio than form or speed, I think. I'd guess that after a few dozen work outs I could get the cardio much better.
Thinking about it, the pros must swim that 1st leg in 10-12 seconds or something like that. Funny, I don't feel like a flopping imbecile when I'm swimming but I'm sure I must look that way to skilled swimmers!
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Nice effort, yes the 25M sprint is the easy part and likely your speed doubles once you get into lengths 3-4. But you are right that if you swim a couple times a week for a month or so you will improve rapidly. I've been swimming once a week for 4-5 years and though I could sprint a bit faster my average 100M time if I'm swimming say 800M is still only 1:30-40+. I need to take a lesson! The good news is b/c swimming is hard you can get a very good muscle and aerobic workout in just 30 minutes.
 
And then there's the most pointless of all sports --- epee
LOL
 
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Husk-E said:
Water polo.
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Seeing this next to Lamb with the big grin on his face makes me see a thought bubble over his head with the words - "Water polo? That's for honkeys."
 
Not sure if anyone already wrote this, but synchronized diving is odd - I know this sounds bad, but the men's winners hugging after winning had me feeling like those watching SNL's ambiguous duo - yup, I'm going to hell.
 
dapriest said:
Seeing this next to Lamb with the big grin on his face makes me see a thought bubble over his head with the words - "Water polo? That's for honkeys."
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Honkey? That's racist.
 
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