Are the olympic games sporting events or competitions?

Question

The reason I am asking for opinions on this is that it came up in a disscussion recently and one of the people(A fat little man who barely has enough lung capacity to bend over to pick up something he dropped on the floor) laughed and said the following was the "stupidest thing I ever heard of". The 2008 Olmpics are being held in Beijing, stunt cheerleading has been chosen as a "trial" competition. My son and four other guys and three girls who all work for UCA (Universal Cheerleaders Association) are going to leave in Sept. to start teaching the Chinese. Anyway, my son and his wife both do this professionally for a living and make more money than the nice little fat man does at his boring 9-5 job, so I don't care that he thinks what they do is stupid. I would like to know if who thinks as a competition it could have a place in the olympics at some point in time.

I should clarify that what UCA is doing is teaching them to do a trial to see how it is accepted, there will be no actual competion in 08, just a presentation by the chinese. By the way SK8, there's no NEED TO CAPITALIZE EVERY WORD YOU WANT TO EMPHASIZE, all the events in the olympics are NOT SPORTING events, take the luge for instance. Stop YELLING! Thank you

The name of the company my son and his wife work for is Universal Cheerleaders Association. It's just the name of the company dear, not a statement on cheerleading.

Answer 1

Its a little Gray area. The IOC's mission is :
According to the Olympic Charter, established by Pierre de Coubertin, the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.

The UCA has to establish their petition to qualify as a "recognised sport" under Olympic Charter. Only then will they be allowed in Olympics. UCA has to establish its support from other International Sports foundations for their sport.

Based on that I think that UCA has a very fair chance of making its way to 2008 Beijing Games provided they can get required number of countries to participate.

Answer 2

olympics are a competition, not a sporting event. back in the olden days olympics were held as competitions to see who had the fastest runner, strongest soldier, best wrestler. there is an element of win/lose but if it were a sporting event, like football or baseball, there would be some other incentive than just winning. cheerleading I don't think will have for quite some time. simply bcuz not many countries have cheerleaders. it's not an available option for many countries as a means of competition or what have you. perhaps in the future.....maybe.

Answer 3

not everything American is universal. Cheerleading is an American institution which doesn't have to dowith Olympism or the Olympic spirit. The Olympics should be what they were created to be and not include everything likely to please an American TV audience.
Cheerleading is not a sport, much less one with a long, noble tradition behind it, which would qualify it as an Olympic discipline.There:one can put it plainly without "yelling".

Answer 4

The olympics started as competitions, but when the american media convinced the IOC to change the rules to allow professional athletes to compete, they changed into a "media product". Atlanta brought them to the level of modern day reality TV, with little basis in reality, just a bunch of raw material for marketing drones to spin into a saleable product.

Answer 5

It depends on the sport.
In my opinion if you compete man on man(or woman on woman) where there is a clear winner I'd call that a sport.
If you're relying on some arbitrary score by some biased judge I'd call that a competition(and not a very fair one since a lot of judges come in having a predetermined outcome in mind.
(Remember the women's figure skating debacle?)

Answer 6

sporting events ARE competitions...you are COMPETING at a SPORT against others...there are spectators, thus it is an EVENT. as said before SPORTING EVENTS ARE COMPETITIONS assuming you are competing against others. Since in the Olympics people are participating in a SPORT (that is, afterall the Olympics is comprised of a bunch of SPORTS), and COMPETING against each other, it is obviously both.

Answer 7

Well if you look in the dictionary it's says that a sport is a competition so I say it's a competition so that means it's a sport.

Answer 8

Its a competition amongst nations involving various sports.