What do you think can combine swimming with athletics, and football and basketball with rhythmic gymnastics and biathlon? That's right - all these sports are considered Olympic. This means that they relate to one of two programs of the Olympic Games - either winter or summer.
Non-Olympic sports - what kind of concept?
But in fact, there are twice as many sports in the world as there are those listed in the Olympic program. What only people do not do! And rugby, and sambo, and ball hockey, and many, many others. All these are non-Olympic sports, the list of which looks very impressive. Why are some of its species Olympic and others not?
There are many reasons. Let's say rugby - why is this sport bad? Not too popular? In Russia, yes. But, for example, in England rugby matches consistently collect entire stadiums of fans. And so it is in many other countries.
In this case, the reason is not that. As you know, the Olympic Games in the summer last no more than 15 days. To play the Olympic championship, for example in rugby, time is required much more. The fact is that rugby refers to contact sports. It is very labor intensive, and the players give all their best. After each match, they need extra time to recover, more than, for example, players.
And this is also a sport
Another reason - many games can be attributed to sports with a serious stretch. Do you personally know that bowling and billiards are also considered sports? Most people in everyday life consider these activities to be just fun pastimes, it would never occur to them that these are also non-Olympic sports. Their list also includes chess - and the vast majority of them treat them only as a highly intellectual game that develops the brain, but not in any way a sporting activity. And this is provided that chess, like billiards and all the same bowling in our country, has its own federations, that is, they are officially considered sports.
The mentioned species have been tried repeatedly to be included in the program of Olympiads in different years. Perhaps this will happen in the future. But so far they are not. Apparently not spectacular enough. After all, the Olympic Games relate primarily to mass events. It is difficult to imagine how a full stadium of spectators will, with bated breath, follow the duel of two chess players.
Of course, all these criteria are quite subjective. For example, curling was recognized as an Olympic sport in 1998. The average viewer does not understand why curling is better or more spectacular than the same bowling?
Fight and not give up
Representatives of the Federation of Non-Olympic Sports in no way want to come to terms with the status of such and continue to fight hard to be included in the program of Olympiads. But to do this is quite difficult. And in order to “place” a sport in the program, something else will have to be excluded.
If the program of the first Olympic Games included only 9 sports, then over time it has grown so much that it was necessary to limit such diversity and even exclude something. Thus, now non-Olympic sports such as tug of war, cricket and croquet, polo, which were present in the first half of the last century, were thrown out of the program. In the current century, baseball and softball were excluded from the program, boxing was on the verge of exclusion.
Non-Olympic sports not wanting to be such
Most actively fighting for the status of Olympic representatives of various types of martial arts. They have achieved inclusion in the program of boxing, judo, taekwondo olympiads. IOC regularly bombards federations of karate, wushu, sambo, kickboxing and other types of wrestling. But they have not achieved the result yet.
Despite the popularity of individual power varieties, their representatives have not yet been able to achieve the abolition of the status of "non-Olympic sports". So, weight-lifting, powerlifting and arm wrestling unsuccessfully fight for this status. The Federation of Sports Dances, a spectacular and highly dynamic sport, constantly submits applications to the IOC and is also constantly disappointed. But sporting dances can not be called less beautiful or spectacular than figure skating, which is “spelled out” in the program of the Olympic Games a long time ago.
Are there any lucky ones?
The same intellectual sports mentioned above like checkers, chess, billiards also have few chances to get into the number of participants in the Olympiads. It is believed that the IOC prefers competitions involving real physical activity.
And yet, despite the fact that the program of the Olympiads is filled to capacity, some sports still manage to break into the number of lucky ones. So, relatively recently, the summer Olympic program has replenished with golf, the winter - with a snowboard.
Most parents seek to identify a child from an early age in some kind of sports section. At the same time, non-Olympic sports in Russia are preferred infrequently in our country. When choosing a type of physical activity for a son or daughter, they most often stop at the one that is included in the treasured program. What is the reason for this? The main advantage is state funding, which allows young athletes to build a sports career in the future.
A look into the past
If we turn to history, we can recall that the first Olympic Games started on the territory of Ancient Greece in ancient times. Then only men participated in them, and they dedicated their competitions to numerous pagan gods. Games always started with chariot races, later various martial arts, horse races, pentathlon were included. In addition, in the olympiads of those times there were competitions of heralds and trumpeters. Individual nominations, such as running, have not lost popularity to this day.
Now there are many sports known around the world, prestigious, fashionable, in addition, having an official competition structure and their own international associations. These are non-Olympic sports recognized by the IOC, but still not yet included in the Olympic program.
Some of them did not become such just because of limited popularity (in individual countries). An example is American football, some types of sailing, all the same cricket and various extreme novelties.