JJ, I agree - anything that needs to be 'judged' isn't a sport, it's an 'art'. Yes, it takes a great deal of skill and fitness. But when you think about it - ice skating is dancing with special shoes. Ballet is dancing with special shoes. Why dont we have ballet in the Olympics? And as for syncronised swimming??

Loopy, your definition of sport therefore just ruled out all the traditional Olympic events. Where's the defence or ball in the running, throwing and jumping?

I agree that things with a ball and 'defence' are sports as we know it, but I think that anything that needs a referee should not be at the olympics. A referee has too much power to alter the course of events. As was mentioned in something to do with the 'Superbowl (whatever that is). Things should have the ability to be judged in an unboased manner by time or distance. A stopwatch and tape measure dont take politics into account.

If it were up to me we'd see a lot of the crowd pleasers go - gymnastics, iceskating, rugby, football (soccer), hockey - ice and field etc. Of course then no-one would want to watch, and we'd no longer have the Olympics.

As for the suggestive movements - well that's ridiculous. It shows even more that the skating doesn't belong in this arena. You dont see the 100 metres being judged on the fine turn of the runners ankle, with points off for the suggestive movement of an arm.

And imagine a horse race - a horse comes out from behind, takes over from the favourite to get a place, but the judges say - no, sorry, the other horse is the favourite, you dont get the place?

Allie