A few weeks ago, I asked whether it was a sad day for Olympic sports when the IOC voted to remove wrestling from the 2020 Olympics. You can read that post
here.
In my opinion, keeping wrestling is a no-brainer.
Including "professional" sports is a complicated issue for me. In some ways I love it and in other ways I don't.
Although this blog is dedicated to Olympic sports, that does not mean that I don't also love professional sports. I love the Toronto Raptors, Maple Leafs, Blue Jays and TFC. I love tennis and golf.
Loving the Olympics like I do, I love to see my favourite athletes whether they are amateur or professional to get to experience the Games but I fear that the professional athletes that we see on television year round will take the attention away from the amateur athletes we only get to see during Olympic years.
I also have an issue with professional athletes who covet their own championships more than an Olympic medal. Ask a basketball player if he would rather win an NBA Championship or an Olympic gold medal and most will answer the NBA Championship. Although, perhaps that is only an issue for American basketball players because winning an Olympic gold medal isn't really a challenge for the "dream team". Ask a Canadian, Spanish or French basketball player and the answer would probably be different.
Tennis and golf were in the Olympics in the early 1900's. Winning a gold medal for those athletes was probably very important, but to tennis players and golfers today, an Olympic gold medal can be a side benefit. Most would rather win a major or a Grand Slam.
The other problem with golf is that the best players are not all represented at the Olympics. This issue occurs with amateur sports as well but it's more glaring with famous professional athletes. There are mogul skiers or cross-country skiers for example who are in the top 10 in the world who will not qualify for the 2014 Olympics because each country only have so many entries. Would you recognize their names?
The top 15 players in the world automatically qualify for golf. The next 45 players whose countries don't already have two players qualified would get invitations. Looking at the 2012 year end World Rankings, four players would qualify who are out of the top 300 but number 16 ranked Phil Mickelson wouldn't (and many other players who could win on any given day). It could be good news for Canada with David Hearn ranked 224. He would have qualified. Of course things will change on the road to Rio.
In tennis, only three players outside the top 100 competed at the 2012 Olympics. Their qualification method seems better (or more diverse in countries represented in the top 100). Tennis allows for four players from one country compared to two for golf. This selection process wouldn't help Phil Mickelson though.
Golf unlike tennis, is a sport where anyone can win on any given day. In the 20 golf majors between 2008-2012, there have been 18 different winners. In the 28 tennis Grand Slams between 2006-2012, there have been 5 winners (with 3 players winning 26 of those). What is best, having an Olympic champion who is "worthy" because he is already in the top of his sport or having a surprise winner? There are definitely Olympic sports like tennis where the same people win, but is there a sport where someone outside the top 50 could win a medal? Between 2009 and 2012, there were 6 golf major champions who were ranked outside the top 50 (and only 2 who were ranked in the top 10). There are many golfers ranked between 15-50 who could win but won't compete because of the selection criteria. The American dream team (think Ryder Cup/President's Cup) in golf is definitely not guaranteed a gold medal like the basketball dream team.
Another issue for me is the amount of time needed for some of these sports. Golf will increase coverage by approximately 5 hours for each of 4 rounds if they show the full round for the leaders (double when we include the women). It would probably be even more than that if they show every player's full rounds. That is coverage potentially taken away from sports that only get coverage every four years.
As a spectator, I was annoyed during the London 2012 Olympics when CTV was showing tennis matches on the main network during the early rounds. I felt that players that I could see week in and week out throughout the year was taking broadcast time away from Olympians that we only get to see every four years. I wouldn't have had a problem if they had showed the tennis online or on another network.
For me, early round matches were not very important. Roger Federer playing a first round match that he has a 99% chance of winning shouldn't be televised in Canada (on our main network) ahead of our amateur athletes (as much as I love Roger).
Ironically, I was driving my kids to camp up in Muskoka when the men's final was going on. We stopped at McDonald's in Huntsville and we were excited that the match was being televised. We sat at a bar-type table all facing the television. As the match is nearing the end, an employee comes up and changes the channel. A table of women move closer and cheer as Canada's women's basketball team is playing a match. All I could do was laugh at the irony. I believe the basketball game was a quarter final while a British (Scottish) man who hasn't won a major is about to win gold in his home "country" (I'm married to an English man, so don't get me started on the Scottish-English-Welsh-Northern Irish-Great British-UK thing).
Although, speaking of that "thing", Rory McIlroy, the #1 ranked player at the end of 2012 from Northern Ireland, has already said that he may not want to compete at the Olympics because he doesn't want to choose whether to compete for Great Britain or Ireland (in so doing potentially alienating a portion of his fans). Being from Northern Ireland, he can choose which one he wants to represent. Does that not say something about whether the Olympics are important or not to (some) professional golfers?
In the end, my biggest problem with professional athletes competing at the Olympics is the attention that multi-millionaire household names who we see compete year round will take away from the amateur Olympians we only get to see every four years. The news programs, the headlines, the sports highlights will feature the professional household names instead of introducing the mainstream to our amateur athletes.
The IOC are trying to get big name athletes into the Games along with big sponsors. They are thinking about the money and the viewership but I fear that in doing so, the Olympics will lose their tradition and history and will just become another competition on the calendar.
