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Friday, July 08, 2005

One of these things is not like the others

Baseball . . . softball . . . rhythmic gymnastics. Baseball and softball have been booted out of the Summer Olympic Games, effective 2012. [LINK] So much for American cultural hegemony.

Karate and squash couldn't muster the required two-thirds vote of the IOC to replace our national pastime and national-similar-game-with-a-larger-ball. Golf, rugby and "roller sports" missed earlier cuts.

Although baseball and softball are the first sports to be dropped since 1936, they are in good company among former Olympic sports. [LINK] Some of the others:

  • Calisthenics

  • Rope Climb

  • 56-Pound Weight Throw

  • Tug-of-War ("In teams of 8, one team had to pull the other six feet along in order to win. If after 5 minutes no team had done this, the team which had pulled the most was declared the winner.")

  • "Plunge for Distance" ("The competitors began with a standing dive, then had to remain motionless for one minute or until their heads broke the surface of the water, whichever came first.")

  • Obstacle Race - Swimming ("Held over 200m, competitors had to climb over a pole, then scramble over a row of boats, and then swim under another row of boats.")

  • Motorboating (men only, for reasons I suppose must have seemed obvious in 1908)

  • Live Pigeon Shooting ("The birds were released in front of a participant and the winner was the competitor who shot down the most birds from the sky. The event turned out to be quite messy with dead or injured birds on the ground and blood and feathers all over the place.")

    I don't know, Live Pigeon Shooting sounds somewhat like last year's World Series.


posted at 10:52 AM

1 Comments:

Blogger syp said...

Well, that means ESPN2 (the Deuce) will probably stop showing college softball.

July 08, 2005 11:50 AM  

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