Originally Posted By Mr X And cheerleading is no sport either. Not by a longshot. It's yet another form of dance/choreography. Not a sport.
Originally Posted By Mr X "NEXT, on ESPN2, immediately following the cheerleading competition, we bring you COMPETITIVE HOMEBUILDING...live!"
Originally Posted By trekkeruss I don't quite understand why dance can't be considered a sport. It certainly requires strength and agility. They have dance competitions all the time. It's no different than figure skating, which is in the Olympics. So what makes it not a sport? Just because it's considered an artform?
Originally Posted By Lisann22 I'm merely debating because I'm questioning some of it myself but a dancer does have to work out and train and I hear commentators say all the time - this person is such a great athlete or they have such athletic moves. athlete (noun) a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill. So if they are in a ballet competition, they are an athlete. ;>
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>As for calling a dancer an athlete, they are not.<< I disagree. Watch a Gene Kelly movie sometime. He's an athlete all the way.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <As for calling a dancer an athlete, they are not. They are athletic, sure. But not athletes (unless they play basketball on the side or something).> I disagree. That's parsing it way too fine. Someone using his body in an athletic way is an athlete. It takes way more athletic skill to be a dancer (on a professional level) than to be, say, a bowler or a runner or a cyclist - the latter two take tremendous conditioning, but don't require as many types of skill and agility as great dancing. But while dancers are athletes, I don't think they're sportsmen/women. For sports, I do think there needs to be a competitive element. So while dancing wouldn't be a sport, skating would. Figure skating or speed skating - why would one be a sport and one not? And everyone understands that speed skating is a sport, right? So is the problem for some that one is a simple race and one requires judges? So do diving, gymnastics and other undeniable sports. So for me, a sport is something that requires athletic skill and is also competitive. So car racing is borderline for me (concentration and enduring difficult conditions are not quite the same thing as athletic skill), but I'll give you golf. Although whoever said "we call the things we like sports and not the things we don't like so much" probably was closest to the truth.
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 <<So for me, a sport is something that requires athletic skill and is also competitive.>> Da Da Da Da Da-da-da-DA: DOG SHOW!
Originally Posted By Lisann22 LOL Hence sportsmen/women. It's all so confusing!!!!!!! Hey, those trainers are athletes anyone who walks a boxer, retreiver, etc knows. Haaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnngggggggggg on!
Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<It takes way more athletic skill to be a dancer (on a professional level) than to be, say, a bowler or a runner or a cyclist - the latter two take tremendous conditioning, but don't require as many types of skill and agility as great dancing.>> I was wating for someone to mention cycling. It does require an intense amount of conditioning. Typical professional races are multi-hour events, covering 100 or more miles. The biggest race in the world, the Tour de France, covers more than 2000 miles over the course of 21 days. Unknown to most is the amount of teamwork and tactics in the sport. There is skill and agility involved. Certainly not to the degree as a dancer, but riding down twisting mountain passes at 60+ mph definitely takes skill and guts. Oh, and it is a contact sport as well. Watch a sprint...there can be a lot of pushing and shoving going on in the dash for the line.
Originally Posted By LPFan22 I always heard underwater-basket-weaving-without-a-scuba was a good spectator sport. Maybe one day it will be as big as the Super Bowl.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Competitive sexual intercourse. Would that be an athletic event?
Originally Posted By ClintFlint2 ////Although whoever said "we call the things we like sports and not the things we don't like so much" probably was closest to the truth.//// I'm not a part of that crowd because I love playing golf and I work with weights often and I will be the first and I guess the only to say absolutely that golf is not a sport and I'm undecided about weight lifting. Also, football and baseball bore me out of my wits but I definitely call those sports. That is why I implored people to be honest 70 or more posts back because I knew well ahead of time some would come on here and be defensive because they think (((very stupidly))) that by relabeling the game which they play as a non-sport then that is a black mark against their precious activity, AS IF IT WOULD ACTUALLY LOWER OR DEBASE THEIR PRECIOUS ACTIVITY, how dumb. For you defensives out there who can't handle the truth just remember that a sporting activity is not superior to a non- sporting activity and vice versa. Chess, sewing, archery, dance and cooking are just as important and meaningful(((or just as NOT important and meaningful for that matter))) as boxing, soccer, fooball and swimming. It should be painfully obvious what I just wrote but how many times have I seen people become defensive over things like this?,,, many times.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Your opinion is golf is not a sport. Fine. The fact remains that it is.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss Yes, but they don't play a sport. What they do is for entertainment; there is no competition.
Originally Posted By Mr X >>Your opinion is golf is not a sport. Fine. The fact remains that it is.<< Why, because you say so? I think there have been plenty of good arguments pro and con on the issue. Anyway, my point is that by broadening the definition all the way to "it is whatever I want it to be", the words lose all meaning. Anyone who isn't a total couch potato is an "athlete", and any old game you want to invent is "sports". So far noone has explained to me why ballet dancers are any different from carpenters as far as terming them "athletes" and what they do as "sports"? And if anyone tries to argue to include carpenters in this mish-mash, I'm officially out of the conversation.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <Another thing the call hunters "great sportsmen." < until they equally arm the animals - I would never agree. Now teach a deer to used a shotgun and hide him in the woods too - and then we have a sport
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Yep. I just don't get hunting. Hunting for deer, birds, whatever. Just don't get it.
