The Olympics are underway, with soccer and rugby sevens beginning pool play earlier today. Over the next two and a half weeks, approximately one thousand medals will be awarded across 39 different sports. Here are those 39 sports, ranked from worst (in the Olympics) to best:
39. Breaking
Did you guys know they added breakdancing to the Olympics? I didn’t know they added breakdancing to the Olympics. I saw “breaking” on the list and said, “What is breaking?” After I looked it up, I came away disturbed. Competitive breakdancing feels like it defeats the point of breakdancing. Not that I know what the point of breakdancing is. What I do know is that it’s not to win a gold medal.
38. Soccer
I like soccer. But Olympic soccer stinks. Olympic medals should be the greatest honor in their sport. That’s not the case in soccer.
Rugby sevens and 3-on-3 basketball have shown exactly how to remedy this—pivot Olympic soccer to the indoor version of the sport—but that feels destined to fall on deaf ears.
37. Golf
Another one where the athletes just can’t care as much as they care about other events on their calendar. Would you rather golf in the Olympics, or in the three cool majors and the Ryder Cup?
36. Tennis
This is similar, but tennis feels less forced than golf and less disappointing than soccer.
35. Cycling
Last one in this category for now. I’m fine with cycling most Olympics, but in France? I thought these guys just toured de France.
34. Skateboarding
I’ve waited long enough. I don’t think skateboarding should be an Olympic sport. It’s not like breakdancing, which shouldn’t be a competitive sport, but skateboarding feels more natural confined to the X-Games. Nothing against skateboarding at all. It’s just…I saw a post from a skateboarder in the Olympic Village today, and I expected them to be skateboarding in the Olympic Village. They weren’t. They were preparing to compete in the most “establishment” sporting festival in the world. Where’s the rebellion in that?
33. Rhythmic Gymnastics
Ugh, I guess it can stay. It looks so dumb, though.
32. Boxing
This is back into the soccer/golf/tennis/cycling category. If someone told me they were an Olympic boxer, I would think less of their boxing than if they told me they were a professional boxer. I might be really wrong about that, but that’s my impression. Boxing is already global.
31. Equestrian
I do think equestrian should be there, but dressage, like rhythmic gymnastics, looks painfully awkward and dumb. Plus, the horses get a bad rap. Sorry they don’t always want to dance for you, you freaks.
30. Artistic Swimming
I’m assuming this is synchronized swimming, which I respect because it is hard but don’t understand because why would you not just swim? There is already a sport for you. It is called swimming. Also, water polo! If you’re into the treading water part of the deal.
29. Fencing
Fencing, in general, is tough to handle. At the college level in the United States, it’s mostly about how much effort your parents were willing to put in to make you a “Division I athlete.” At the Olympics, I guess it’s more impressive.
28. Archery
Ok this is where they start getting cool.
27. Shooting
How are they so good at this? Also, the guns look kind of funny. It’s nice to see a gun and think, “That is used for sports,” and not, “Oh no oh no oh no am I going to die??”
26. Sailing
Sailing is a great Olympic sport to see happening on TV across a bar. It looks cool, but it gets old fast, so if you can be around it without watching it closely, you’ve found the sweet spot.
25. Modern Pentathlon
I like the modern pentathlon. Fencing is way cooler when it’s done alongside swimming, running, shooting, and horse jumping. It seems like a little bit of a hack—if you’re a triathlete who isn’t good enough to do the triathlon, you can learn to ride a horse—but there are much easier shortcuts into world glory.
24. Field Hockey
This is like sailing, except it doesn’t look cool. I’m glad field hockey’s in the Olympics—I can’t think of another high-level outlet for those skills—but I don’t need to know anything about it.
23. Table Tennis
I don’t respect Olympic table tennis. But do I enjoy it? Yes.
22. Badminton
I don’t respect Olympic badminton. But do I enjoy it? Yes!
21. Basketball
Basketball is in a similar category to soccer, golf, and tennis. Its biggest moments happen elsewhere.* And yet…
There’s something so compelling about Olympic basketball. The Dream Team. The NBA’s main characters playing for their respective countries. How low-upside and high-downside it is for the U.S.A.
Had basketball never been part of the Olympics, I wouldn’t miss it. Since it’s there, I’m attached to it.
20. Taekwondo
Sure!
19. Judo
My understanding is that judo is like taekwondo mixed with wrestling. That’s pretty badass.
18. Surfing
Surfing works while skateboarding doesn’t because surfing happens halfway across the world. One day, we will do something similar with Moon Jumping.
17. Triathlon
I can’t imagine doing a triathlon myself. I would drown. Plus, these guys do a little tour of the area hosting the Olympics? Great Olympic sport.
16. Canoeing
Another one where I just find it really cool. Mostly the kayaking. Watersports are fun because of the water involved. I wonder if there’s a way to make log flumes a sport.
15. Trampoline
This could have gone the way of rhythmic gymnastics. Instead, it calls to mind slamball. Not that there’s any contact. But the trampolines are so trampoline-y! It feels like someone on the IOC had a great time at a birthday party when they were five and decided to push trampolining for adults. It worked.
14. Sport Climbing
I think I’ve seen fake rock climbing on ESPN2 on a summer afternoon, and I think they were dropping into a pool at the end of it. I understand that isn’t the way the Olympians dismount, but that was fun enough to watch that I’m in on this one. Takes me back to MXC.
13. Handball
Much like field hockey, where else would handballers go?
12. Beach Volleyball
The novelty of beach volleyball has worn off since the Walsh/May days, but it’s still cool. Not as cool as regular volleyball, but cool.
11. Weightlifting
This one’s perfect for the Olympics. “Olympic weightlifter.” That means something.
10. Volleyball
Fun. Good. Been around long enough that we respect it, but still rising in popularity and credibility.
9. Water Polo
Field hockey, handball, water polo: Respectable team sports that receive no glory outside of the Olympics, and even then only receive it in a very invisible way. Water polo is far and away the most impressive of the three. Flavor Flav gets it.
8. Wrestling
Like weightlifting, but more fun to watch.
7. Diving
Diving is the figure skating of the Summer Olympics. It’s best if you watch it with someone who did it competitively in their youth. You don’t need them to explain it to you, which frees them up to give better anecdotes.
6. Rowing
Boys in the Boat was a great book.
5. Track & Field
I respect track (and field!), but I usually don’t watch it in the Olympics. I don’t know why it doesn’t get it done for me. One theory below, but even that theory is more about swimming than track.
Anyway, this is kind of the epitome of an Olympic sport. If you didn’t have track & field, you couldn’t have Olympics.
4. Three-on-Three Basketball
3. Rugby Sevens
We’re combining these because the idea is the same: A variant of the sport makes it fit the Olympics more naturally, and it’s different enough from the real thing to still be taken seriously. This is what needs to happen with soccer. Give us something unique. Give us a soccer equivalent to Jimmer Fredette.
2. Gymnastics
Legendary. Every four years, we get new American heroes.
1. Swimming
I love watching Olympic swimming, and I have two theories as to why.
The first is that I was 13 when Michael Phelps won all those medals in Beijing, and that was incredible. I had never cared about swimming before, and I’ve hardly cared about it since, but that really stands out in my sports-watching memories.
The second gets back to why track doesn’t work as well as a televised sport: Olympic swimming pools are perfectly rectangular. They fit so satisfyingly into a TV screen. Add in how easily the broadcasters can incorporate national flags into the display, and it achieves perfection. I would watch two straight weeks of Olympic swimming if that was all there was in the Olympics.
Etc.
- Well the Canadian soccer drone thing is crazy. If you missed it, some Canadian women’s soccer staffers were using drones to spy on New Zealand’s team. Again: This is merely the Olympics. It’s not the World Cup! The best part is that one of them agreed to serve prison time in France. Suspended sentence. I have no idea if he has to serve it or not. Did he know it was a crime in France? Did he just think he was cheating? I want to know so many things.
- Huge rugby sevens match tomorrow against Uruguay. A win means advancement to the quarterfinals, also tomorrow. Impossible to know what happens with a tie. Whole lot of national pride on the line. (Handball, archery, and more soccer tomorrow too.)
*In the NIT.
👍🏼😳