PGA Championship 2010.

[mike_a_lafontaine]

I think there is some confusion between "sport" and "athletics". A sport is an organized event with standard scoring for achieving a goal. Therefore, while a golfer is not necessarily an athlete, golf is indeed a sport. On the flip side, a gymnast, for example, is an athlete, but gymnastics is not a sport since 6 different judges can look at the same performance and score differently. A touchdown is six points, no matter how pretty your catch/run across the goal line, therefore football is a sport, and lets face it, even those fat-ass linemen can manhandle any of us like a loaf of bread and are therefore athletes. Bowling is another sport even though bowlers are not athletes. I used to box, and as much as it pains me to say, boxing is not a sport for the same reason as gymnastics, because even when a fighter totally dominates a round, a judge can still score the other fighter as the winner of the round.

[pigsteak]

so climbing comps...sport or not?

[mike_a_lafontaine]

How are they scored? If by style points, then no, not a sport. If by time or fewest falls, then yes, a sport.

[woodchuck008]

No sweat, no cardio, so it's a pasttime, not a sport. Doing math problems is tedious and requires concentration too , but I'd not call it a sport either., so how is golf different?

[mike_a_lafontaine]

Because a sport is an organized event with standard scoring for achieving a goal. Golf meets that definition. Again, you are confusing "sport" with "athletics". No sweat, no cardio means an event is not ATHLETIC. It does not define an activity as not being a SPORT.

[pigsteak]

how about baseball, where different umipres call balls and strikes differently on the same pitch? yet, there are standard ways to score?

so what is bouldering, besides a silly waste of time?

[KD]

Tiger will be back! He is the best and even he has a a bottom but his talent and sprit (or libido) will bring him through. He is far from being finished with his awesome career.

[heavyc]

Mike, I have never seen someone use your definition before. I think this topic is another one that can be defined by the individual. I grew up admiring athletes in football, basketball, track, wrestling, baseball, soccer and most of the olympic sports. I have always felt an athlete should be fast, powerful and to some extent look like a greek god, after all didn't the greeks sort of start this whole sport thing with the olympics over 2000 years ago? Now "sports" have been added to the olympics that boggle my mind i.e. ballroom dancing, curling and ESPN covers spelling bees and poker as if they are sports WTF? I have never thought how an activity is judged or scored determines wether its participants are athletes or not. More food for thought, supposedly Hemingway felt an activity wasn't a sport unless there was some personal risk to it: "There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.". I doubt he would have considered "sport" climbing a sport as opposed to the real risky stuff like alpine multipitch stuff. Hey but if your belayer sucks maybe sport climbing would qualify?

[mike_a_lafontaine]

I have never thought how an activity is judged or scored determines wether its participants are athletes or not.

How a contest is judged or scored DOESN'T determine whether the participants are athletes or not. It determines if it is a SPORT! Which brings me to my point, that people are equating sport as being equal to athletes. I agree, an athlete should be big, strong, fast, etc and do things the rest of us marvel at. Athletic endeavours include sweat, muscle, and effort. But a sport does not require an athlete, just as an athletic endeavour does not make something a sport. When we go rock climbing, we are participating in an athletic endeavour, but we are not competing in a sport (unless we are involved in a comp). When we head to our Tuesday night bowling league we are participating in a sport, even though the fat dude on the other team is certainly no athlete.

Though you are correct, it is a differentiation that I have no authority or expertise with which to declare. It is simply my way of catagorizing my world and the way I determine the difference between sport and not sport. (It is a personality flaw that I have that requires me to be able to catalogue everything in life. Probably why I pursued science in college and grad school.) I admire figure skaters because they are remarkable athletes (and I like the skimpy outfits, I must confess), but figure skating, to me, is not a sport, it is more of a beauty contest where points are given by biased judges. There is obviously a serious flaw, in that I must concede by my definition that NASCAR is a sport, but at least I don't have to concede to the driver as being athletes.

Pigsteak, where I consider an umpire or a ref different from a judge in figure skating or gymnastics is that their function is quite different. They are there to determine if the rules are being followed. While two different umpires may have different strike zones, they still lack the power to give more or less runs when someone crosses the plate. Sure, that is a cop out, but as long as we need people to enforce rules, there will always be that human element of bias. Just keep it out of the scoring as much as possible. I would love to have electronic balls and strikes, set up the stike zone between the knees and letters and over the plate, put up and electronic sensor of some sort and let 'er rip. But in gymnastics, the judges are not there simply to determine if rules are followed, but also to judge how well! Imagine in football if a running back has a great run, the ref decides to give him 8 points instead because he broke a lot of tackles. But another ref decides to only give him 5 points because, hell, if he were a better running back, the defenders shouldn't have been in a position to hit him in the first place.

It is another topic altogether how ESPN can put stupid ass things like poker and truck pulls on TV but not put Primal Quest or Untamed New England on. Seriously, poker? More people would watch poker than watch a 10 day adventure race??

[pigsteak]

how about the 90% of people who come to the gorge and have sport draws and a rope,but only tina toprope , and hangdog, and whine about the temps..can that hardly be called an athletic endeavor? The reason running is more athletic, no matter your speed, than climbing, is because if you stop, you stop. No one is going to finish that run/race for you.

But in climbing, you can hang on protection or be lowered without finishing the original goal...in one pitch crag climbing, there is nothing sporty, athletic, or genuine about top roping, lowering before the chains, having someone else finish the climb, or wussing out and taking at the first sign of getting tired or your baby soft hands are sore...sad state of affairs, this thing we call sport climbing.