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Curling - that ridiculous Olympic "sport"

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<< Have any of you seen this waste of an Olympic Event?

If you don't know what it is, it's basically shuffleboard on ice. I can't believe they made a sport out of this.

Can't wait till the 2006 Olympics when we see championship snowball fighting. I hope the USA wins the gold in that. >>



And a lot of people consider your hobby with computers lame.
 
at first i thought..."oh! shuffleboard on ice."
well..i still call it that, but don't get me wrong, its a pretty serious sport that requires a lot of skill...
why'd they make it an olympic sport?...well, from what i hear 27 countries minimum have to have the sport as an actual major sporting event...leagues, rankings, etc...

some ppl obviously won't like curling, or any other sport for that matter...i myself am not too crazy about pairs figure skating...but so what..to each their own...i still wouldn't go so far as to say that its a waste of an olympic event....

edit: taken from the olympic web page..."Curling began in the 16th century in Scotland, where games were played during winter on frozen ponds, lochs and marshes. The earliest-known curling stones came from the Scottish regions of Stirling and Perth and date back to 1511. The earliest reports of curling came from Paisley Abbey, Scotland, in 1541"

it was introduced to the olympics in 1998...
 
I played a bit of curlin quite a few years ago.

takes quite a bit of skill and some thinking/strategy and I remember it being quite a bit of fun.
 
It's not a sport. Neither is bowling or golf, figure skating (borderline), or pretty much anything else where you can sit down and eat pizza in between turns. Especially if you never break a sweat.

Don't get me wrong, those are perfectly legitimate games, some of those things I would go and do with friends on a saturday night, but they're not sports.
 


<< It's not a sport. Neither is bowling or golf, figure skating (borderline), or pretty much anything else where you can sit down and eat pizza in between turns. Especially if you never break a sweat.

Don't get me wrong, those are perfectly legitimate games, some of those things I would go and do with friends on a saturday night, but they're not sports. >>



Sweet. I was always looking for criteria for which I could argue that baseball wasn't a sport.
 


<< Yep, if X951 thinks its ridiculous everyone else should and it shouldn't be an Olympic event. >>

You got that right!


<< And a lot of people consider your hobby with computers lame. >>

I don't compete with computers, and I definitely don't win gold medals and other awards for it.

I admit it takes skill, but it's not a sport. Sir Frederick pretty much sums it up in his post. (Although figure skating, while I hate it, I'll admit that's a sport - you have to be damn athletic to do that.)

Bottom Line: if a 50 year old can compete at the same level as a 20 year old, it's not a sport. Maybe it's just our definitions of sport that cause the disagreement.
 
personally, i could care less if curling is a sport or not, prolly tons of faithful practicers and fans of the event, but it doesn't belong in the Olympics. no matter how tainted the Olympics are by sponsors and politics, the fact remains every sport I can think of (summer or winter) involves a high level of athleticism. the variety of sports all depend on the most pure forms of athleticism--running, jumping, and throwing.

having read dozens if not hundreds of threads regarding the legitimacy of athleticism of football (american), baseball, and other sports, it seems the general consensus is that basketball is the most athletic of the 4 major sports most watched in the US--necessitating running, jumping, and throwing/shooting. you can't be a Tony Saragusa (sp?) or David Wells or some other unathletic type and expect to succeed in the NBA. having watched almost all the broadcasted curling on the NBC networks this Olympics, this is the analogy i draw when i see unathletic individuals participating in the most pure of athletic events epitomized every 2 years (winter-summer alternate) in the Olympics.

having watched some exciting matches the last 2 days, i have no doubt an exceedingly high level of skill is needed, and years of dedication needed to learn and perfect the craft, but that doesn't merit a spot as an Olympics sport. this is the same reason I don't want to see chess in the upcoming summer events (being petitioned last i heard). x951's video game analogy follows this same "skill" logic
 


<< X951, wow you must be what 15? >>

pretty mature yourself, going after the debater rather than the debate, p'haps a sign of having no argument ;p
 
LoL maybe you should read the thread before saying I haven't posted already. The kid didn't want to have a debate, he wanted to knock curling; plane and simple.

He had no argument so don't tell me that I'm in the wrong for pointing it out.
 
I am suprised at the number of ignorant people out there.
What than, is considered a sport?

What makes basketball and soccer more sportlike than curling?
Please enlighten me.
 
I won't get into whether or not it's a sport (synchronized swimming anybody?), but I will say that curling is hard to do. Boring to me cuz I don't do it; but I know it takes a lot of skill.

BTW for those who don't know, it's not regular ice like most of us are used to. On top of the "normal" ice there are frozen dropplets of water (pebbles), so it's on top of these that the stone rides on (less friction).



<< Curlers deliver the stones with a left-hand or right-hand spin, causing the stone to curl in the direction of the spin. While the stone is traveling, the other members of the team are allowed to sweep the ice in front of the stone, thus making the stone travel farther and straighter by polishing the ice and removing any debris. Sweeping can increase the distance of a delivery by as much as 15 feet. >>

 
Well, the US just won the gold, silver, and bronze in the snowboarding half-pipe competition. I wonder if other countries roll their eyes at snowboarding.

probably, i still sorta do. its still in its infancy, it doesn't have the shine of perfection like figure skating. in years to come the standards will keep rising for the sport, which is good. right now its full of wobbles and crap😛 goofball competitors.
 
i had laughed at it at first, but then the past 2 nights, I watched the US men's team lose to Canada...and a little bit of the women against Japan. It was actually rather cool. Very tough to make some of those shots. I saw the last shot the American women made to beat Japan, that was impressive, so was the double hit that the American men had to do twice just to stay in the game. Watch it with an open mind and you might appreciate it for the skill needed if nothing else.
 


<< Have any of you seen this waste of an Olympic Event? >>



Which one are we talking bout again😉

FreAk😀

I've been waiting 4 years for THIS?!?!?!?!
 
My wife curls weekly on a rather competitive mixed team. After the first two ends, she curls in a t-shirt because the sweeping takes so much effort. Granted, she's doesn't have the best cardio-vascular system, but played competively, it is more intense than you would ever imagine.

Of course, I've tried the sport. Anyone with good balance can play recreationally, but you're still gonna fall on you ass repeatedly while throwing. Sweeping isn't much easier.

What you don't see immediately on the screen is the strategy involved. It is a very complex game at that level. What you must see are the double and triple takeouts for which Kevin Martin's rink is famous. Where the women strategize and play a rather cunning game, if a mens team doesn't like what's happening, they'll fire a rock down the ice and clear the rings. It's refreshingly violent.

The sport started in Scotland, I believe, but has flourished in Canada. The Toronto Raptors, I've heard, were aghast when they learned that (during the Raptor's bad years) The Sports Network carried curling instead of Raptor games because curling was getting more viewers.

It is a sport, and judged against many accepted Olympic events, is deserved of Olympic sport status.
 


<< LoL maybe you should read the thread before saying I haven't posted already. The kid didn't want to have a debate, he wanted to knock curling; plane and simple.

He had no argument so don't tell me that I'm in the wrong for pointing it out. >>


DanJ, here is a list of your posts in this thread, aside from the one above:



<< Yep, if X951 thinks its ridiculous everyone else should and it shouldn't be an Olympic event.

If you don't like it, don't watch it, but don't knock what other people work towards, especially Olympic athletes. Curling is definitely a sport and deserves to be in the Olympics.
>>






<< X951, wow you must be what 15? >>



All you did was express your opinion with no basis at all. I gave my reasons why I think curling shouldn't be in the Olympics. All you did was:
1) correct me for "knocking" people who work towards their goals and
2) said "curling is definitely a sport and deserves to be in the Olympics" - no reasons given whatsoever.
3) sarcastically said that everyone should agree with me
4) flame me

How am I supposed to debate directly with your specific opinions if you don't have any? You call me 15?
 


<< I think we should put chess into the summer Olympics. What do you think? >>

No 🙂 When a 350 lb man who hasn't done a lick of excercise in years can win at chess I think I can safely say that chess is NOT a sport! Video Deathmatching is far more a sport than that.
 
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