When is it a sport and when is it not?

[Richard_A]

If it is not in this event, it's not a sport. 

 

Classic Sunday viewing. 

[MartinRS]

7 hours ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

 

Excellent!  Going out on the p*ss is finally recognised! 😉

I do remember a local pub had a dwile flonking trophy. It was an old tin chamber pot, nailed to a cut-off snooker table leg. The game, which I never saw played, involved people pelting each-other with beer soaked rags, so I was told. I have no idea what the rules were. No change of shoes was necessary though a change a clothes was probably a good idea. It sounded like a waste of beer to me!

[Bernard Lamb]

In my day sport was competitive. These days it can be either competitive or participational. A situation with which my brain cannot cope.

The best sport that I have ever heard about. though never had a chance to take part in, was the Hungarian Pentathlon. Back in the days of the old Empire. Totally non PC these days.

Bernard

[Hibelroad]

Killing poor defenceless animals (hope my opinion isn’t too obvious here )  is considered a sport by some but I think the OP has nailed it with his definitions. Vivian Stanshall’s ( Bonzos) song about the odd boy pretty much sums up my experience of sport at school, and my attitude to sport. 

Edited February 25 by Hibelroad
Spelling

[brightspark]

It was explained to me, by someone who valued their own opinions a great deal, that a proper sport was one where people paid to go to into a stadium.

So, according to him, the cycle racing I did was not a proper sport, at any level.

 

Someone else told me that the only proper sport was one that featured in the Olympics.  I was doing motorbike racing at the time, so not a sport.

 

Perhaps my PE teacher at school was correct, when he wrote in my school report that  I "have no sporting aptitude".

[Reorte]

2 hours ago, brightspark said:

It was explained to me, by someone who valued their own opinions a great deal, that a proper sport was one where people paid to go to into a stadium.

So, according to him, the cycle racing I did was not a proper sport, at any level.

Isn't a velodrome a stadium?

[Dagworth]

Any activity in which the end goal is to kill anything except time should not qualify as a sport.

 

Andi

[Nearholmer]

Oddly enough, that would complete the change of meaning that has been going on since the middle-ages, because hunting with a primarily pleasure focus was top of the list of sports back then, certainly among the well-off.

[eastglosmog]

Would certainly render the line "to mar their hunting's sport" uttered by a witch in Purcells opera Dido and Aeneas meaningless!

[Welchester]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Oddly enough, that would complete the change of meaning that has been going on since the middle-ages, because hunting with a primarily pleasure focus was top of the list of sports back then, certainly among the well-off.

 

Indeed. It was said that sports were huntin', shootin' and fishin'. Everything else was games.

[BachelorBoy]

20 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

In my day sport was competitive. These days it can be either competitive or participational. A situation with which my brain cannot cope.

The best sport that I have ever heard about. though never had a chance to take part in, was the Hungarian Pentathlon. Back in the days of the old Empire. Totally non PC these days.

Bernard

 

There's always Finnish baseball.

 

It was an Olympic sport (just once, when the Olympics were, coincidentally, in Helsinki).

 

[Steamport Southport]

2 hours ago, Welchester said:

 

Indeed. It was said that sports were huntin', shootin' and fishin'. Everything else was games.

 

Pretty much.

 

You might not like those pursuits, but they are the definition of sport. Same goes for horse racing, dogs, etc. I think one of the criteria for sport is whether you can bet on it.

 

 

Snooker is officially a sport, yet bizarrely darts isn't. They even start by saying "Game on!"

 

 

Jason

[NBL]

I remember my PE teacher saying that a sport is an activity that is done alone or as part of a team, competitive or not, harnessing the power of something that can kill you.  Such as mountaineering, motor sports and cycling.

 

Using his reasoning, just going to the shops and back where I grew up would be a sport!!!  Savages.

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, NBL said:

I remember my PE teacher saying

Funny lot PE teachers; some strange ideas.

[Nick C]

The Global Association of International Sports Federations have a pretty good definition, in my opinion:

Quote

 

GAISF uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:[1]

• have an element of competition
• be in no way harmful to any living creature
• not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier (excluding proprietary games such as arena football)
• not rely on any "luck" element specifically designed into the sport.

 

 

[The Lurker]

Presumably boxing is not a sport per the GAISF definition, seeing as it is harmful to the two living creatures taking part.

 

And with all the fuss about heading the football, I guess that is not either.

[Nearholmer]

Sports bodies will define “sports” to be what they  fancy them to be.

 

Dictionaries will define “sports” in accordance with common usage, allowing a bit of latitude for change over time.

 

Historians and etymologists (entomologists too, if butterfly catching counts) will have things to say about how we got from one meaning to another, the social settings, and a heap of other stuff.

 

Me, you, our former PE teachers, and a bloke at the bus-stop will all have opinions.

 

To paraphrase Humpty Dumpty: sport means what I say it means.

Edited February 27 by Nearholmer

[Steamport Southport]

33 minutes ago, Nick C said:

The Global Association of International Sports Federations have a pretty good definition, in my opinion:

 

 

Quote

not rely on any "luck" element specifically designed into the sport.

 

Funny that they've got card games in it then!

 

Now defunct anyway. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Association_of_International_Sports_Federations

 

 

Jason

Edited February 27 by Steamport Southport

[Invicta Informant]

On 26/02/2024 at 14:55, Steamport Southport said:

Snooker is officially a sport, yet bizarrely darts isn't. They even start by saying "Game on!"

Darts is a sport. The World Darts Federation, the sport's highest governing body, was one of nearly 100 members of the Global Association of International Sports Federations (which was dissolved in 2023 and replaced by Sport Accord), alongside the FIA, FIFA, the ICC, etc. There has been a World Championship since 1978 and a World Cup since 1977. Rugby Union, by comparison, had their first World Cup in 1987.

[NIK]

On 24/02/2024 at 19:41, Mike Buckner said:

Did I dream it, or was there a TV programme in which teams competed to build the best (or was it quickest) working layout?

Hi,

 

Were you thinking of something like the Channel 5 Great Model Railway Challenge (where Basingstoke club made the final in series 1)?.

 

Regards

 

Nik

[fezza]

Has anyone quoted Ernest Hemingway yet?

 

"There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games."

[Andy Hayter]

"To be a sport, I think that an activity needs to meet these three criteria:

1. It must be competitive in that there is the potential for victory or loss. The competing to be carried out by persons acting individually or in teams. It may also be carried out by individuals to compare their performance against a personal best.

2. It must contain a physical element requiring strenuous/developed muscular effort i.e. raises the heart rate, increases breathing or generates a sweat. This does not have to be a whole-body effort, but may be confined to part of the body.

3. It requires an element of developed/developing skill."

 

Since Mountaineering has just been mentioned, I will throw is potholing alongside it.  Criteria 2 and 3 certainly apply with both but the potential for victory or loss?    Victory perhaps against the objective to climb/descend your target and I suppose you could caveat that with "without loss of life"

Edited February 27 by Andy Hayter