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costanza

should skydiving become an olympic sport?

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not sure which section to post this under. this last week it was announced that the 2016 Olympics in Rio will drop windsurfing for a new kitesurfing event. it's great to see kitesurfing will be getting a huge visibility boost, such a fun sport.

http://www.internationalkiteboarding.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4287&Itemid=267


has there been discussions among USPA about trying to get some sort of skydiving event into the summer games as well? perhaps an accuracy competition? I know there are already world competitions, which seem like the natural precursor to an Olympic event.

I know people will bring up the various licensing and legal regulations (would US jumpers be bound by the FAA regulations, regulations of the host nation, rank all regulations and pick the most strict?).

what do you think?

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It has been discussed for decades. The closest we ever got was the olympic rings demo in 1988. Skydiving has been a demonstration sport at other olympics I believe. The problem is skydiving is not really a good live spectator sport.

I think the best prospect would be Para-Ski at the winter olympics. Almost every european country that competes in the winter olympics can field a PS team, although Para-ski seems to have lost popularity here in the US in recent times. I don't even know if we have a nationals anymore?
Onward and Upward!

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Everybody wants to get their activity into the Olympics. Even Chess wants recognition as an Olympic Sport (to the point that they have adopted WADA code against performance enhancing drugs). The problem is that the IOC does not want to expand the number of competitors because it is already logistically difficult for a city to host the games without massive debt. So, you can't really get in unless 1. You are at the top of the list of most desireable sports and 2. Somebody else gets kicked out. One strike against skydiving is that it is seen as a sport for the wealthy and privledged, not available or accesible in many poorer nations.

Personally I think it would be cool to have skydiving in the Olympics but I see no realistic chance of that happening. Maybe a demonstration spot once in a while.
"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

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The Olympics have become all about MONEY.

Didn't start out that way, but they dropped all pretense at being about sport when the "amateur" rule finally went away after everyone had known it was a sham for decades.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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forget the Olympics, skydiving should go where all extreme sports go. The X games............B|

Freestyle Motocross
Rally
Skateboarding
BMX
Inline skating
Climbing
Street luge
X-venture race
Super modified snow shovel racing
Winter freestyle motocross best trick
Surfing
Downhill skateboarding
Motocross supercross
Wakeboarding
Skysurfing
Bungee jumping
Skateboard vert doubles
BMX vert doubles
Super motorcross
Barefoot waterski jumping
Ultracross

Spank the

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One strike against skydiving is that it is seen as a sport for the wealthy and privledged, not available or accesible in many poorer nations.



If I wanted to be argumentative :) I'd note that polo and yachting are Olympic sports. ;)

Ski-jumping isn't exactly a poor man's sport, or widely practiced in, shall we say, the more Equatorial nations. But it does have that "coolness" factor, doesn't it? And that's what skydiving has, too.

That being said, I agree with the other poster's comment that skydiving is a better fit as an X-Games sport. The Olympics has Rythmic Gymnastics. Ew! Do we really want to be part of a club that lets that in through the front door, but kicks out windsurfing?

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Skydive? No maybe not.
Now body flight...oh yes that would work!
Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

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One strike against skydiving is that it is seen as a sport for the wealthy and privledged, not available or accesible in many poorer nations.



If I wanted to be argumentative :) I'd note that polo and yachting are Olympic sports. ;)

Ski-jumping isn't exactly a poor man's sport, or widely practiced in, shall we say, the more Equatorial nations. But it does have that "coolness" factor, doesn't it? And that's what skydiving has, too.

That being said, I agree with the other poster's comment that skydiving is a better fit as an X-Games sport. The Olympics has Rythmic Gymnastics. Ew! Do we really want to be part of a club that lets that in through the front door, but kicks out windsurfing?


Water polog is an olympic sport. Polo is not, although it has been in the past (last in 1936 I believe). Yachting is, as you note, a very expensive sport of the privlidged, as are some others--Equistrian is not cheap. However yachting is a very established sport as part of the Olympic program. I believe new sports do have some challenge to prove that they are 1. widely (though not universally) practiced throughout the world and 2. prove that the ccost of training and participation is not prohibitive. The full criteria for evaluation are here:

http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Reports/EN/en_report_813.pdf

I think the winter Olympics are totally different in terms of their criteria. They are not maxed out on space and facilities cost and the events they host have some inherent geographical distribution, due to them having to be contested on ice and snow.

Don't get me wrong, I would love for skydiving to be part of the Olympics, and let's face it, we are all cool. I just don't see skydiving surviving evaluation by those criteria. (How many skydivers are willing to put up with piss tests and submit to the 24 hour whereabouts requirements of the WADA code?)
"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

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... skydiving is that it is seen as a sport for the wealthy and privledged ...


Yeah, easy to see folks getting that impression if they only visit The Farm. But I'm sure there are DZ that are a little more, how would you say, "earthy"? :ph34r:

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Personally I think the most spectator friendly area of skydiving is swooping, and lets face it - there would eventually be a fatality, on world wide television. I think that is one of the biggest strikes against skydiving getting into the Olympics.

As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

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Personally I think the most spectator friendly area of skydiving is swooping, and lets face it - there would eventually be a fatality, on world wide television. I think that is one of the biggest strikes against skydiving getting into the Olympics.



Or one of the biggest reasons you could see networks push to get it included, the possibility of a major wreck or fatality. NASCAR of the sky. I mean people have seen fatalities in other live sporting events (racing)

On the negative side think about the logistics, olympic DZ would be miles from any city, now having to secure airspace and deal with weather delays seems costly. I would honestly place the best chance to see Skydiving in the olympics as the year that Dubai gets the summer games, they are shooting for 2024 range. It could be included as one of those 1 times things they have done in the past for speciality sports or events related to host countries.

Yes its lack of ability to have it live really affects it, but in a few years i'm sure they will have live transmitters that the camera guy can easily jump.It would work better in the X games in terms of fan base, marketing etc.

I will say I just completed a business of sports class, and I did bring up skydiving a few times. As stated before its not a spectator sport, and that is where tunnel flying has an advantage. What is needed is a league to define competition better than the USPA does and acts solely on the competition side, yet as we all know there are not really big profit margins in this sport, its costly, it is just not really suited for how we current market and promote sports. Plus its very fringe, we all participate but far more people are involved in nearly every other sport.

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I can't think of anything I would like to see less.

The Olympic movement is spiritually bankrupt, mind-bogglingly corrupt, and symbolic of nothing but greed and power.

If you think skydiving now is focused on money at the expense of its soul, wait 'til you let the IOC get their hands on it.
--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

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what do you think?



The Olympics doesn't include any sports which require motorized equipment (while we have ski lifts to make life easier, it's possible to skin/snow shoe/hike up and ski down) and shouldn't make an exception for skydiving.

BASE jumping would fit OK though with freestyle aerials and landing accuracy.

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what do you think?



The Olympics doesn't include any sports which require motorized equipment (while we have ski lifts to make life easier, it's possible to skin/snow shoe/hike up and ski down) and shouldn't make an exception for skydiving.
.



Balloon jumps don't require motorized equipment.

And I'd like to see you haul a bobsled up the hill.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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