BMX an Olympic sport!

[Luther Blissett]

From news.com.au http://foxsports.news.com.au/story/0,8659,6682047-23218,00.html

BMX cycling at Beijing Games From correspondnts in Prague July 1, 2003

THE International Olympic Committee said today it has approved the addition of men's and women's BMX
cycling for the Beijing Games in 2008.

IOC President Jacques Rogge said that the International Cycling Federation will drop two of its
events to add BMX, or bike moto-cross, to the competition.

"It (BMX) will not add anything in terms of the number of athletes," said Rogge, adding that the
Cycling Federation has yet to decide which two events will be dropped.

Rogge said that the overall number of events for competition at Beijing will remain at 300.

A number of so-called "extreme sports" have been added to the Olympics in recent years, including
triathlon and mountain biking to the Summer Games, and snowboarding to the Winter Games.

Agence France-Presse

 

[Andrew Swan]

> A number of so-called "extreme sports" have been added to the Olympics in recent years, including
> triathlon and mountain biking to the Summer Games, and snowboarding to the Winter Games.

I know this is wildly OT (so flame me), but how is snowboarding extreme and skiing (by implication)
is not? Or more on-topic, how is MTBing (in its Olympic form) extreme, and road/track cycling (again
by implication) is not?

&roo

 

[Luther Blissett]

Andrew Swan wrote:

> I know this is wildly OT (so flame me), but how is snowboarding extreme and skiing (by
> implication) is not? Or more on-topic, how is MTBing (in its Olympic form) extreme, and road/track
> cycling (again by implication) is not?

The whole extreme tag is lost on me. It's just another late 20th century marketing gimmick .. I'm
sure in 5 years time the kiddies will think anything described as "extreme" is lame. Is lawn bowls
an extreme sport? More Australians die each year playing lawn bowls than any other sport. (OT as
well, as usual)

 

[Twisties]

i agree, "extreme" now means anything where you may be more than 50cm of the ground.

 

[Peter Signorini]

"Twisties" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> i agree, "extreme" now means anything where you may be more than 50cm of the ground

From the news report
>>"extreme sports" have been added to the Olympics in recent years,
including triathlon.

Not even 50cm it seems!

I think the extreme tag has been applied to any sport which is new and unconventional. The
established Olympic sports tend to be those which have a reasonably lengthy tradition of organised
sporting activity and are accepted by those in authority over sport. Things like road cycling or
downhill skiing are part of the establishment and OK to devote time and resources towards. Any newer
sports (post 1980) all get tarred with the brush of high risk and questionable morality.

We could probably add synchronised swimming and beach volleyball to the list of 'extreme sports'

Cheers Peter

 

[John Stevenson]

"Peter Signorini" <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:

>
> "Twisties" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> i agree, "extreme" now means anything where you may be more than 50cm of the ground
>
> From the news report
>>>"extreme sports" have been added to the Olympics in recent years,
> including triathlon.
>
> Not even 50cm it seems!
>
> I think the extreme tag has been applied to any sport which is new and unconventional.

That's nowhere near cynical enough. Extreme sports are ones that marketing scum can use to sell soft
drinks to the young and stupid by telling them they're young and stupid. If the marketing works,
case proven.

The term is fantastically dumb. If 'extreme' meant anything in this context, it would be 'carries a
significant risk of death if anything much at all goes wrong', in which case I can think of just
three extreme sports off the top of my head: high-altitude mountaineering; cave diving and big- wave
surfing. The rest is vanity, posturing and marketing.

The sports usually lumped as 'extreme' aren't - they're 'recreational sports', in that the vast
majority of the activity in those sports is about doing the activity for its own sake, having fun,
and not competing or training to compete. Traditional sports administrators find this incredibly
hard to get their heads around.