Would you sign a petition for the IOC to change their charter and add motor sports (Nascar/F1) to the Summer Olympics?

[bcla]

No. The country hosting the Olympics already has to spend way too much money on venues of limited use after the games are over. IOC doesn't care what sort of debt the hosting country is stuck with and seems to be living in the past. Olympics USED to be about amateur athletics and when they added professional golfers or basketball players to the list made NO sense to me. Adding other pro sports would be a mistake.

The whole idea of "amateurism" was always a farce. People got paid as professionals in all but name. If you look at old AAU basketball teams with players participating in the Olympics, they were often considered employees of the team sponsor. In 1936 (the first Olympics for basketball) the gold medal winning USA team was about half players from the Universal Pictures team. The old Soviet Union nominally called their athletes members of the military, even though their sole job was to be an athlete.

They've gotten a lot of criticism over wanting large building expenses, and they're frankly OK with using existing infrastructure. The LA Olympics in 2028 isn't going to cost that much. Certainly not as much as Beijing. And the key to LA is that they've vastly improved their public transportation infrastructure.

 

[_19disnA]

The IOC's idea of how to deal with the whole 'amateur' situation has to been to stick their head in the sand and pretend it will magically go away. Sports like golf already have effective definitions for what constitutes being an amateur and it works globally. The IOC basically don't want to deal with it and inviting pros to participate is the wrong solution. Part of the reason the Olympics have lost popularity over the years is because they seem out of touch with reality.

The USA already has many venues used for major sporting events you won't find in many other countries. Even if something new is constructed, it can often be repurposed after the games and makes economic sense. The enormous costs for various other countries to host an Olympics leaves them seriously in debt and with many venues that will rarely be used once the games are over. The IOC also has made no effort to deal with any of that.

 

[prairie_girl]

Could not be the same said for motorcross/motorbike events at the Olympics be considered the same by that logic?

Yes, of course. I didn’t imply differently.

 

[prairie_girl]

No. The country hosting the Olympics already has to spend way too much money on venues of limited use after the games are over. IOC doesn't care what sort of debt the hosting country is stuck with and seems to be living in the past. Olympics USED to be about amateur athletics and when they added professional golfers or basketball players to the list made NO sense to me. Adding other pro sports would be a mistake.

As an aside, it’s funny to me that the first sport I thought of when you mentioned pro players was hockey. I’m not sure I would have thought of golf. Every time the Winter Olympics come around, there is debate on whether the NHL will send players.

 

[bookgirl]

Would you sign a petition for the IOC to change their charter and add motor sports (Nascar/F1) to the Summer Olympics? Just curious, since gaming will become an Olympic sport in the future, why not Nascar/F1 too?

Nope but I would support chariot races.

 

[Buzz Rules]

Nope but I would support chariot races.

PETA wouldn't. I'm sure of it. It would be educational and entertaining though.

 

[bookgirl]

PETA wouldn't. I'm sure of it. It would be educational and entertaining though.

They already have equestrian events, and technically Harness Racing could be the more modern version of it.

Like we probably don't want Charlton Heston level combat but it does fit into the classic sense of 'sport' for the 776BC era of Olympics.

 

[Buzz Rules]

They already have equestrian events, and technically Harness Racing could be the more modern version of it.

Like we probably don't want Charlton Heston level combat but it does fit into the classic sense of 'sport' for the 776BC era of Olympics.

I would love that to be honest. I wish they could do ancient Greek fighting (a safe sparing version, not trying to be lethal), like how they do martial arts/fencing in the Olympics.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Would you sign a petition for the IOC to change their charter and add motor sports (Nascar/F1) to the Summer Olympics?

No.