Sorcha, you wrote:

"After all, who really cares about .22 shooting, Nordic combined, Equestrian Jumping, etc? ( Unless Princess Anne is competeing....)"

I don't know about .22 shooting and Nordic combined, but Equestrian sports are my favorite (summer) Olympic sport.

'Course, I'm biased because I've taken dressage classes as my primary physical therapy since I was 9 years old, and I've competed occasionally, myself (though nowhere near the Olympic level.

In any case, I think a person's apreciation of any sport grows in exponential relationship with how much you understand the rules, and the less arbitrary it all seems. But it this case, I think the judges were just clueless --looking at the parts, perhaps, rather than the whole.

PS:BTW, the equestrian sports are the only ones not divided into "men's" and "women's" divisions -- either for the four-leggeds or the two-leggeds ;-)