Admittedly, I have never been one to get into Olympic mania. True, I happily watch various events when they're on and I'm home, but I've never been one to schedule my life around the games.
However, I find myself greatly intrigued this time around because I have discovered several events that I didn't even know were events. This has led me to a path of discovery wherein I examined all of the categories of competion.
Yet this in itself is still a little boring. And so, I thought to myself, why not make this interesting?
Since it's the Summer Olympics, and since one of the nicest things about summertime is the ability to avoid wearing shoes, I decided to examine Olympic events in terms of how many of them can be competed in without shoes. Here's what I discovered:
Without Shoes (100 events)
-Diving (8 events)
-Swimming (34 events)
-Synchronized Swimming (2 events)
-Water Polo (2 events)
-Artistic Gymnastics (14 events)
-Rhythmic Gymnastics (2 events)
-Judo (14 events)
-Taekwondo (8 events)
-Beach Volleyball (2 events)
-UPDATED 8-17-08 Rowing (14 events) (I had initially categorized this event as "up for debate," but I just watched the U.S. win the gold in one of the rowing events, and the ladies were wearing socks but not shoes)
With Shoes (167 events)
-Archery (4 events)
-Athletics (Track and Field) (47 events)
-Badminton (5 events)
-Baseball (1 event)
-Basketball (2 events)
-Boxing (11 events)
-Cycling BMX (2 events)
-Cycling Road (4 events)
-Cycling Track (10 events)
-Mountain Bike (2 events)
-Equestrain Dressage (2 events)
-Equestrian Eventing (2 events)
-Equestrian Jumping (2 events)
-Fencing (10 events)
-Football (we Yanks might call it soccer) (2 events)
-Handball (2 events)
-Shooting (15 events)
-Softball (1 event)
-Table Tennis (4 events)
-Tennis (4 events)
-Volleyball (2 events)
-Weightlifting (15 events)
-Wrestling Freestyle (11 events)
-Wrestling Greco-Roman (7 events)
Up For Debate (34 events)
-Canoe/Kayak Flatwater (12 events) (do you really need shoes in a kayak?)
-Canoe/Kayak Slalom (4 events) (do you really need shoes in a kayak?)
-Trampoline (2 events) (official rules allow either socks or gym shoes)
-Hockey (2 events) (because then you have the question: Are skates shoes?)
-Modern Pentathlon (2 events) (no shoes for swimming; shoes for the other activities)
-Rowing (14 events) (do you really need shoes on a boat? Maybe....)
-Sailing (11 events)
-Triathlon (2 events) (no shoes for swimming; shoes for the other activities)
So, ok. It's apparent that there are still more shoed events than shoeless events in the Summer Opympics. What are your crazy Olympic questions?
5 comments:
For the equestrian events, I want to know how they get their horses all over the world? Do the horses then experience jet lag?
Good grief, Jana--shoed vs shoeless? What novel catagorizing. Thanks for the (needed!) diversion.
It appears that all horses are flown to Hong Kong (which is where all the equestrian events take place). The first horses started over on July 25 and the last travelled on August 6. After they arrive, they are deplaned and taken to their air-conditioned stables immediately and checked out by vets. They then experience 10 days of isolation. The first equestrian event began on August 9, and the last will end on August 21.
This leads me to another query: The horses, too, are shoed. Therefore, do I need to adjust my numbers to include the shoes of the horses as well as the shoes of the riders? Hmm....
Bad news! I just caught a bit of the women's trampoline final, and the women wear shoes! To be true, they look like dance shoes, but I think they still fall under the category of shoe-ness. Oh well.
Just out of curiosity, are shoes required for track and field events? I remember the 1960 marathon winner ran barefoot, and Zola Budd was barefoot when she and Mary Decker got tangled up in 1984.
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