14.) Rowing
On the down-side, its basically just about speed (and I guess freakish strength), but on the plus side, it's generally short, there's surprisingly more comebacks and changes in position during the race for effectively a 6-8 minute run, and you get a lowkey interesting Olympic sport. Crew people are generally elitist chuds, but that's an American thing - and weirdly, America does fairly bad in rowing....
13.) Slalom Canoeing
Really just for the comedy. Seeing people try to contor their bodies in these lonely little canoes through poles, dealing with rapids and fake rocks, and plain bonkerness, is just great fun. I have no idea what makes someone slow, and the penalties seem more arbitrary than they reall are, but it's a good time.
12.) Diving
I haven't yet seen the diving from high platforms, but from seeing it in past I know it's fairly death-defying. The more synchronized platform stuff basically combines diving, gymnastics, which is pretty crazy. My only real criticism is I have no idea who is better or how people mess up to the naked eye.
11.) Cycling - Mountain Biking
It's a bit long, but its incredible what these bikers go up against. The twists, the turns, the climbs, the randoms times they fearlessly just speed over rocks and shit. It puts the other biking events to shame. Would be higher if not for the length of the race, adn how I get the sense the order about ~60% of the way through is generally what it will end up as.
10.) Skateboarding
There's definitely some "shiny new thing" aspect to this ranking, but after seeing skateboarding in the Olympics for the first time, and after a while kind of understanding how it works, I got really into it. There's a lot of interesting stories, with the various great 13-year olds, there were some cool tricks. It also knew its shelf-life, getting in and out with some plaudits quickly.
9.) Judo
Over the course of the pandemic, I've increasingly got into UFC. Mainly because it was the one sport that barely stopped - quickly repositioning to Fight Island back in April, 2020. Anyway, Judo is to me the Olympics version of UFC. It took a while to get the rules, but once I did I was fascinated - both at the seeming subjectiveness of the judging (a really hard slam ends it immediately, but just a regular hard slam doesn't?), but it's quick (one match ended in 13 seconds). It pits some random country combinations. They're wearing robes. Just a lot of good stuff.
8.) Rugby Sevens
It was I think the 2012 or 2016 when Rugby Sevens took it by storm - that time's Skateboarding. I got a delayed entrance. I still prefer Aussie Rules in terms of my quasi-football escapes, but I feel like I understand or at least enjoy rugby in its Olympics, seven-a-side, format. Also, America is weirdly fairly good - at the very least to run train on the UK which is always fun.
7.) Badminton
I don't understand how both (1) anyone so confidently just discriminantly whacks the shuttlecock and it always goes over, and (2) how anyone hits winners in doubles. Yet somehow this adds up to a fascinatingly fast sport that does somewhat resemble the way I've played it but just at an insane level.
6.) Gymnastics
I wrote about it a lot in both of the past two Olympics, particularly the 2012 vintage. I still find it a showcase of supreme athleticism, of incredible precision. What I don't quite like as much is this new way of scoring which starts out with a base score for how difficult the trick/move is. I get that it makes reasonable sense - but it also takes some of the "what's the score?' joy out of it. What doesn't take the joy out is how insane all of it is.
5.) Handball
Long everyone's favorite, it's slowly becoming mine. It's fairly short - with two 30 minute halves. I feel like the refereeing is really random in terms of sometimes people can just get outright tackled. I'm always amused at how the goalie is completely ineffective other than somehow on what amount to penalty shots - which seem to be saved half the time. This is the defintiely the sport I would want to play out of all of these.
4.) Beach Volleyball
It's indoor cousin is still to come, but I still very much enjoy beach volleyball. Yes, the women's version has some very welcome sex appeal to it (granted, the indoor version does as well), but let's talk about the sport. The fact they can cover so much ground with two people on sand is amazing. The fact that everyone's body isn't covered in sand - you know, standard protocol for any time on the beach for us normal people - is even crazier. And finally, the one relative advantage beach volleyball has on regular is because its just two people, there's more strategy and finesse with these finesse shots. Give it all to me.
3.) Table Tennis
I'm somewhat ok at table tennis in that I can compete with my Indian friends to a good degree. Table tennis is easy enough to follow that you can see what the players do. This might be the one area where I play the sport but am also playing a completely different sport. The spin, the rallies, the insane speed. What I love about it is before the game they just bat the ball back and forth for practice - something that happens in tennis. Each one of these 'practice' shots is something alien to normal people, and yet they just calmly rally back adn forth. Get to the game, and it gets so much more intense. It's an amazing sport to watch on tv, and I appreciate the brevity of 11-pt sets.
2.) Swimming
Yes, growing up in the age of Michael Phelps and the associated US dominance in swimming helps. Us American's have had swimming as an Olympics focal point shoved down our throat for 20 years now. But there's a good reason: it's common enough that like 80% of the world can do it. You can easily see who is better than others. The races themselves are all fairly short, and because of that can be incredibldy dramatic. And there's a lot of medals. Now, that's also a very valid criticism of swimming. There/s so many damn medals - that yes it's crazy Michael Phelps has won 56 or whatever, but they give out 273 each time out (some numbers may be exaggerated...). But seeing people win medals is cool and nothign gives you more of that than swimming and its opulence of strokes and lengths.
1.) Volleyball
This became my favorite in 2016, when Brazil - as I learned a volleyball mad country - hosted games in front of a truly raucous crowd in the Maracanazinho. It remains so this time around. Both men's and women's are equally great. It is impossible how many incredible spikes get dug out, how many cool rallies there are. It's also always shocking how tall these men and women are. The games are intense - almost always close. The atmosphere, even without crowds, has been cool. Most Olympic sports I like because of the weirdness, or the craziness of the feats. Volleyball I love because of just hte sport - the sport, at its best level, just rocks; to the point I wonder how it didn't become a more mainstream sport globally. It's good enough as a sport it deserves to be in the first group I had in this, with basketball and tennis and golf and other sports that are good enough on their own to survive and thrive without the backing of the Olympics. But either way I'll be thankful it is.
