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“It was very much catch-as-catch-can
in the early days,” notes David Wallechin-
sky, president of the International Society
of Olympic Historians and author of
The Complete Book of the Summer
Olympics
. “It wasn’t until the Olympics
got bigger that they started to be taken
more seriously.”
After World War I, the International
Olympic Committee, presumably fed
up with regional shenanigans, began to
decide for itself what events would be
held. Today, a sport has to bewidely played
or performed in at least 35 countries to
merit inclusion.
Nevertheless, occasional controversies
have flared up. Baseball and so ball were
both admitted in 1992—and eliminated
following the 2008 Olympic Games. The
IOC voted to oust baseball because the
Summer Games were held during the
pro season, meaning major-league play-
ers couldn’t compete. So ball got the ax
because few countries could field teams,
and those that didwere dominated by the
U.S. and Japanese squads.
When synchroni zed swimming
debuted in 1984, some objected on the
grounds that it was more performance
than sport. Yet the event, which initially
featured just individuals and pairs but
grew to include eight-person teams, has
endured due to widespread popularity.
Similarly, curling shuffles on in theWinter
Games, where it has been an official sport
since 1998, inspiring global fascination if
not rabid fandom.
The next potential flash point? Golf,
an Olympic event in 1900 and 1904,
becomes a medal sport again in 2016.
The argument against including it is the
same as that against soccer and tennis:
While the Olympic Games are effectively
the world championship for events like
track and field, sports like golf, tennis
and soccer have their own definitive
championships. As the late boxing writer
and sports historian Bert Randolph
Sugar once put it, “Tennis already has
an Olympics; it’s called Wimbledon.” The
same goes, critics argue, for the Masters
and the World Cup.
Yet such commentary is moot. The
Olympic Games, as we’ve seen, are irre-
vocably bullish on change. As for those
critics of Olympic golf—well, they can at
the very least take consolation in the fact
that when the event debuts in 2016, it will
involve hi ing only figurative birdies.
JACK CAVANAUGH
covered sports for the
New York Times
for almost 30 years. His
latest book,
Season of ’42
, is about the first
World War II baseball season, the war itself
and life on the American home front.
THE FAN
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