This year, two new sports will debut at the summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Golf and sevens rugby have been added as Olympic sports. Both of these sports were in the Olympics in the early 1900s. Can these sports be successful enough to stick and avoid being cut again?
Golf has not been an Olympic sport since 1904. However, the game has been expanding and reaching more people around the world. This has paved the way for the game to return as an Olympic sport.
The top 60 golfers in the world rankings will qualify, with the top 15 qualifying automatically. The rest will be selected with no more than 2 golfers per country. This format will allow more countries to have participants in the sport, but it doesn’t change the fact that the favorites (USA, England, etc.) are most likely to medal.
Depending on the results of this year’s Olympics, the Olympic committee might decide to make golf more of a team sport, similar to the Ryder Cup format. If one country continues to dominate, golf could be removed due to lack of competition. Remember, that baseball and softball were dropped from the Olympics, with one of the reasons being that the USA dominated.
I think golf will likely be around for a while. The question will be which format is both appealing to fans and competitive enough for several countries to have a shot at the medals.
Rugby hasn’t made an appearance at the Olympics since 1924. At that time it was fifteen-a-side rugby. The new version will be seven-a-side and should be more exciting to watch from a fan’s perspective.
Despite the fact that rugby is not very popular in the US, it still has a large fan base in other countries, which should draw viewers. Rugby has some similarities to American football and that might draw in some American viewers who haven’t seen the sport before and want to learn more about it. It may also help that the USA team is strong and has a decent shot to reach the podium.
One of the down sides to rugby is it is very physical and can lead to big hits and injuries for the players. That doesn’t exactly work well with what the Olympics stand for. This may have been one of the reasons it was dropped from the Olympics back in the 1920’s.
Rugby is already guaranteed to be in both the 2016 and 2020 Olympics. Whether it survives past that may very well be determined by the amount of injuries and hard hits seen. If these numbers are high, rugby could get the axe again.
History would seem to favor these sports sticking around. Only two official Olympic sports (baseball and softball) have been discontinued since 1936 when polo was taken out of the Olympics. If golf and rugby do succeed, it could open the door for baseball and softball to return. The International Olympic Committee is already discussing bringing these sports back for the 2020 Olympics.
