Seeing as how Anders sort of opened the lid on the can of worms that is professional sports......what separates a sport from a simple leisure activity? Is it implied that there are winners and losers (which is sort of the crux of any form of gambling and team affiliation)? Does the level of physical exertion play a role in separating leisure activities from sports (e.g. chess versus decathlon)? What about the definition of victors/losers? Is the quantitative/objective victory (i.e. more goals scored, heavier weights lifted, distance travelled quicker, etc..) better suited to sports than qualitative/subjective evaluation (like figure skating, synchronized swimming or bodybuilding)?
To my mind, the true test of any definition of "sport" is whether or not golf ends up being classified as a sport. That's the test right there - if golf ends up in the same category as ice hockey, powerlifting and football (i.e. not the pile of boredom and poor acting that is soccer), then it's back to the drawing board.
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Basically, if you are talking about sports you compete in, I would say that sports require a minimum of physical effort during the competition. This basically eliminates everything motor sports or riding some kind of animal (and golf!) as sports. That said, some of these require the "athletes" to be pretty fit, so the probably do "sports" during training.
And everything that has some kind of "style" evaluation is not sports. Hence, figure skating, bodybuilding and even ski jump are not considered sports. Ski jumping would be a sport if they only considered the length of the jump, and not how cool the look during the jump.
But, "sports" are only fun if you actually participate and is not just passively watching.
That's my 50 cents.
Dude; last I checked, figure skating, ski jumps etc are included in the olympic games, which apparently make them sports.
Totally agree on sports only being enjoyable if you actually participate, by the way.
last I checked, figure skating, ski jumps etc are included in the olympic games
So is target shooting and curling. I thought you asked what I considered sports, not what IOC classifies as sports.
..well, then...carry on. I misread your post
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