To ask how do you define an activity as being a sport?

[LikeDylanInTheMovies]

Watching the early stages of the Olympics has provoked a debate in chez Dylan.

Are all the events in the Olympics actually sports? After watching the target shooting and the gymnastic events, there was some discussion whether they were sports or not. I argued weren't sports for different reasons.

It is a vexed issue and I admit that I have a narrow definition of sport, for an activity to qualify as a sport it must:

A)Require cardio-vascular fitness (a grey area I know,)
B) Be competitive and rank the competitors in order.(So that knocks out Yoga and cycling to work)
C) The outcome decided by the contestants, not an outside observer or judge. Sports have referees who enforce the rules, but don't decide the outcome.

I'm not doubting that both target shooting and gymnastics at the top level require a tremendous degree of skill, hardwork and dedication, but I'd question either of them were sports for different reasons.

Both activities meet the criteria that they are competitive and the competitors are ranked in order and the outcome decided by an objective criteria. But in the case of target shooting, the effort of aiming and pulling the trigger puts next to no extra strain on the cardiovascular system. If shooting is considered a sport, why not bridge or draughts?

Conversely gymnastics requires an astonishing degree of athleticism and cardio-vascular fitness, but the outcome of the contest is determined by a set of subjective criteria. The event is decided by an outside observer and a decision that x routine has a 7.3 degree of difficulty and another has 6.2. There's also the capacity for the judges to interpret how well the routine has been executed and scoring for artistry. If so, could Strictly or even the X Factor be considered sports events?

This is purely a mental exercise and I'm not doubting the commitment and talent of anyone who takes part in either activity. I realise that there is no way you could exclude all judged events from the Olympics such as synchronised swimming, diving, dressage and there are grey areas like whether boxing is a sport if the contest is won by a knockout and not if decided by a judges' decision and that's before you get onto the thorny issue of motor racing! However I am struggling to find another working definition of a sport.

How does everyone else define an activity as a sport and where do you stand on gymnastics and shooting as sports?

By your definition bowling could be included.

I think the Olympics about gets it right. Not ping pong though, it's ridiculous that it is included as a medal sport.

I'm not sure the "having a pint" exclusion for sports is valid.
I mean, cricket is definitely a sport, but a match actually has lunch and tea scheduled within it!

Table tennis is a sport, but not one any self respecting adult should play. I keep on expecting competitors to be chucked out of the Olympics for not paying youth club subs or an in competition drugs test revealing a competitor having too much capri-sun or panda pops in their urine sample.

This thread is getting stupid. Table tennis is taken very seriously In much of Europe and China. It's only England where table tennis is belittled. Table tennis is one of the few sports that is relatively accessible to poor people in the third world.

My husband got to regional level in table tennis. He never made inter national level, but at one stage he trained really hard. He still plays in veteran competitions even if he gets thrashed by female ex Olympian players.

I sometimes wonder why football, golf or tennis is included in the Olympics. The very best at these sports are rarely interested in competing in the olympics. Better football is played in the World Cup and other competitions are deemed more pretiguous for tennis and golf.

I worked with Russian bloke who had previously been ranked at table tennis, even he didn't think it should be an Olympic sport.

The CV fitness one would knock out the 100m run, or 200m cycling sprint, and that can't really be you aim. (Although it is of course complicated as some CV fitness is required to recover from the anaerobic effort of the run, but then aerobic fitness also helps in shooting as you want a very, very low heartbeat to be able to shoot in the middle)

Determined by the players - would that mean that the long jumpers would have to get their own rulers out? I think you're probably looking for something more on objective vs subjective measures, rather than a judge. And boxing not a sport because 3 rounds is all people have before an outsider decides it?

So having ruled out the 100m and Boxing, I'm not sure your definitions are going to pass the "I don't know what sport is, but I know when I see it" test.

The physical test is probably the distinction for me, scrabble's out - as you don't need any physical characteristics to play it (you can say the letters to go down, eye flicks or whatever access tech you need) whereas running etc., access tech does not make a fair competition.

Perhaps an egg and spoon race?
A three legged race where in the interests of world harmony a competitior must link with someone from another nation?

Something which is competitive and done for fun doesn't cover it - I have entered samples of knitting in competitions (and won prizes) and I have fun doing it, but it's not a sport. The Bake Off isn't sport either.

I would also throw in that there has to be a very clear indication of who is the best - fastest, strongest, most accurate. Things like fishing and ballroom dancing aren't sport as there are ongoing debates about who is "best".

I think it's really difficult to badge up, what constitutes sport. I think if they have ice dancing in the winter games, then they should have ballroom dancing in the summer games.
I don't agree with tennis, golf & football being in it. The yardstick should be that, the pinnacle of a sport to be included, should be an Olympic gold. Winning Wimbledon, the US Masters or the World Cup in football, far outweigh the Olympics in those sport, so should be axed for say, squash & maybe more martial arts.
Great question OP & sorry I went off on a tangent

Oh and I have to speak up for table tennis too having seen a lot of it very close up in an official capacity in the commonwealth games. The top players are very skilled, they are professional players who get paid for what they do, they most definitely work up a sweat and need to be physically fit and the game rules are similar to lawn tennis which doesn't get so much stick.

"What do you define as a sport?"

That which has me changing channels as soon as it appears.

So bake off and ballroom dancing qualify.

I tend to agree Naze an Olympic gold should be the pinnacle of achievement in that sport. if the Olympics isn't of equal or greater importance than another competition in your discipline then it shouldn't feature.

Sirfred yes I was trying to articulate an objective vs subjective criteria. A football match is decided by the number of goals scored, not by descions over who played the most attractive passing game or a subjective assessment of the technical merit of the players performances.

In terms of cardio vascular fitness (as is probably abundantly clear) I'm not a sports scientist and I was trying to articulate 'a degree of physical fitness and activity over and above what the participants would display in everyday life. Thanks for the information on aerobic fitness.

For me, the distinction is summed up in the difference between ballet and gymnastic women's floor routines (one of only two apparatus in all of gymnastics where artistry is awarded any points - and even then it's a fraction of the possible deductions, and quite strongly defined).

In ballet, the goal is artistic expression enabled by immense physical skill.

In gymnastics, the goal is the demonstration of physical skill, and artistry (still measured relatively objectively compared to ballet) is a fraction of the components in a minority of events.

The comparison between shooting and chess is pretty silly. Shooting, like archery, is mainly about physical skill and precision. I hadn't considered quite how much until watching a news item about the 2012 Paralympics and the modifications / adaptations disabled shooting representatives needed.

Officially darts and snooker count as sports, not sure where that leaves us and
I'd rather see them in the Olympics than football, golf and tennis, where the professionals aren't that interested in winning the Olympics as there are more prestigious competitions on offer.

I think it's not a sport if you can smoke or drink while doing it - ie, darts, snooker. But that's just my personal definition, not the IOC one

AgentProvocateur So the Marathon is not a sport? (1904 Olympic marathon winner was drinking Brandy during his race - mind you he was taking strychnine too...)

It's not just speed/strength/endurance that defines a sport, there's lots of sports where you just need sufficient fitness to enable your skill to shine, and it doesn't seem reasonable to put any arbitrary limit on that.

I'm happy that anything competitive with a physical dimension, that is not 100% subjective (best tasting cake is subjective - not a sport, cake baking where you need to get a certain size, texture, clean kitchen etc. etc. all of which are objective and taste is just part of it as a decider - could be a sport, if the rules were objective enough.)

The physical dimension will rule out purely cerebral activities, which I think can be most defined by requirements of Assistive Technology, if your AT can give you no benefit to the activity, then it's not a sport. So playing scrabble with your eye controller - makes scrabble not a sport. Competing in the marathon in a wheelchair, makes marathon a sport, because it's possible to use AT to make you better.

I think it's not a sport if you can smoke or drink while doing it - ie, darts, snooker. But that's just my personal definition, not the IOC one

You could drink whilst taking part in most sports (well maybe not swimming) but it probably wouldn't do your performance much good. The governing body of both darts and snooker have banned both drinking and smoking during competition for many years.