Higher, faster, stronger, weirder: Strange sporting disciplines in Olympics

From trampoline to skateboarding and breakdancing - the Olympics' expanding roster of sports has become increasingly questionable

Before an extra 100 gm tragically disqualified her, Vinesh Phogat made history by becoming the first international wrestler to defeat the Japanese Yiu Susaki, the number 1 seed who had been unbeaten for the past 82 matches. More to the point, Phogat competed in a blue ribbon event that has been on the Olympic calendar since its modern edition in 1896.

Since at least the 1980s, the list of sporting disciplines included under the rubric of the Olympics has grown increasingly questionable. From rhythmic gymnastics, which made its debut in the 1984 summer games in Los Angeles, one of the few women-only events, to surfing, synchronised swimming, trampoline and skateboarding and, finally, breakdancing, the new Olympic motto could as well be Faster, Higher, Stronger, Weirder, where subjectivity trumps objectivity at the judges’ table.

Let’s start with rhythmic gymnastics, which was introduced in the 1984 Olympics at Los Angeles. As distinct from artistic gymnastics, which has been a discipline at the games since 1896 and involves challenging routines on different types of apparatus, rhythmic gymnastics appears to be a set of specified dance exercises done within a time limit. It is difficult to distinguish from the rigours of jazz ballet or modern dance.

Competitors in designer outfits and heavy make-up cavort with hoops, ribbons, balls and ropes. It’s great to watch, for sure. Yet each routine leaves you with the lingering suspicion that any  judgments concerning the complexity of the callisthenics are overlaid by subjective assessments on the aesthetics of the performance, with originality and dance step combinations being two determinants of a performer’s score. 

Ditto with synchronised swimming, also introduced at the LA Games. Lovely to watch, but can it be called sport? Evidently, the Olympic Committee thinks so. In its infinite wisdom, it introduced a men’s individual event at Paris.

Since Los Angeles, the roster of offbeat sports lay dormant until the new century. Then the 2000 edition of the Olympics in Sydney saw the introduction of Trampoline Gymnastics, an offshoot of routines that circus artistes perform off the safety net of their trapeze act. Ironically, but wholly in keeping with China’s rising economic power, this new sport has been dominated by the People’s Republic.

By the time the Covid-delayed Tokyo Games came round in 2021, two more leisure activities made their debut as Olympic disciplines. One was surfing and the other was skateboarding, an offshoot of surfing that was said to have been invented by California surfers as a substitute for when the sea waves were flat. One judge who was asked about the basis on which skateboarding is scored admitted that judging is “an impossible task” because it entails “allocating a hard number to something that is completely subjective”.

That explanation could apply to the newest “sport” introduced at the Paris Olympics: Break dancing (or breaking), the spellbinding African-American street dance form with its origins in Harlem. Competitors here are apparently judged on “vocabulary, execution, musicality and originality”. If that’s the case, how about awarding Michael Jackson a posthumous honorary gold?

As it was, the event attracted the wrong kind of attention, with an Australian woman who goes by the stage name of Raygun scoring precisely zero points for performing a “kangaroo dance”, a routine that has created a serious rift in the dynamic world of breakdancing competitors. No surprise, the event is unlikely to find a place in the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

When LA28 comes round, there’ll be five new team sports but all of them are unexceptionable choices. There’ll be baseball/softball, flag football (a less violent variation of American Football), lacrosse, squash (how come this never figured before?) and, best of all from India’s point of view, T20 cricket. Given Asia’s rise, it’s a pity kabaddi isn’t on the roster. It certainly has a stronger claim than breakdancing, skateboarding or synchronised swimming.