A few tweaks for the Games (Final)

Part of my essay on reforming the Olympics, earlier parts below...
(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)

Team Sports

Team Sports and the Olympics have always been an awkward fit. The basic aims of “Higher, faster, stronger” really only partially appear here. In addition to that, every team sport can hinge on the decision of an umpire or judge, which is the very thing we are striving to avoid at these new Olympics. So happily that means that I can get rid of Handball & Water Polo which really are rather amusing (and similar) sports. Have you ever noticed that if you drained the pool in Water Polo you pretty much get Handball?

We will also get rid of the ‘bouncy’ team sports of Volleyball and Basketball, so the US can say goodbye to two certain golds every Olympics, and volley-ballers can go back to doing whatever it was before they found a use for their height…

The Final Format

You may be wondering what the format for these Olympics would be, as there is such a reduced number of events. 

The answer is simple: One Day.

In a single day the athletes will participate in heats, semis and finals. They are athletes; it should not be that hard. It would be nice if we can put a pool in the middle of an athletics track and do it all in the one place as well! We can have the Jumping, Shot Put and Weightlifting on the side!

Opening and Closing Ceremonies will also be removed, although I did like Rowan Atkinson's effort for London.

So these would be the remaining events:

Athletics events

 100m 

 200m

 400m

 800m

 110m Hurdles

 3000m Steeplechase

 400m Hurdles

 Shot Put

 Long Jump

 High Jump

 Marathon

 4 x 100m Relay

 4 x 400m Relay

 Men's Decathlon

 Women's Heptathlon

 Weightlifting

Swimming events

 50m Freestyle

 100m Freestyle

 200m Freestyle

 400m Freestyle

 1500m Freestyle

4 x 100m Freestyle Relay

 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay

(The long distance swimming events have also been scratched because that seems to have some sort of judgement system to determine if you impeded other swimmers)

There we are, a better, simpler, more pure Olympics; celebrated over a full day, a carnival of athletic prowess. If only we could get rid of the drugs . 

Conclusion.

This was primarily a place for me to lay down a reference for my ideas around the Olympics, but I have also enjoyed the conversations and arguments it has started as well. The Olympics has become a large bloated beast, reducing its' size will go a long way to putting everything that is silly about these two weeks back into proportion.