Opinion
There are Olympic sports ... and then there are golf, tennis and cricket
Emma Kemp
Sports reporterSports journalists regularly use descriptors for athletes and teams. It can be a method of identifying and contextualising, or of highlighting one’s most significant achievements. Think three-time consecutive NRL premiers the Penrith Panthers, or 11-time World Surf League champion Kelly Slater.
It is also a useful tool for distinguishing whether the Olympic Games are considered the peak of a particular sport. It’s indisputable, for instance, that slalom canoeist Jessica Fox is “Olympic champion Jessica Fox”, and swimmer Emma McKeon is “Olympic champion Emma McKeon”.
Conversely, it is inconceivable that the first mention of tennis player Serena Williams would be “Olympic champion Serena Williams”. And it appears flat-out impossible that the likes of golfer Dustin Johnson will ever be “Olympic champion Dustin Johnson”, mostly because he does not even believe the Olympics a worthwhile enough endeavour to attend.
Debate around which sports warrant inclusion at the Olympics reinvigorates itself every time the International Olympic Committee rules that a sport is either in or out.
The latest to get the green light is cricket, which will be reintroduced for Los Angeles 2028 for the first time since 1900. And now seems to be as good a time as any to point out that there is a reason cricket has been absent for more than a century. It is the same reason tennis and golf are an odd fit, and why many have argued men’s Under-23 soccer and road cycling - a footnote to the Tour de France - do not work: the Olympic Games do not represent the pinnacle.
Williams won 23 grand slams; she is unlikely to have retired safe in the knowledge she also has a London 2012 singles title to her name. Similarly, Johnson has two majors, and almost certainly would like some more, which is why he has cited the busy golf calendar as reason for his absence from the two Olympics since it was introduced at Rio in 2016. Australian Adam Scott withdrew from Tokyo 2020, having already skipped Rio because the Olympics was “nothing I’ve ever aspired to do and I don’t think I ever will”.
It’s unlikely Serena Williams, who has won 23 grand slams, will first be remembered as an Olympic champion.Credit: STEVE HOLLAND
Cricket’s inclusion was ultimately all about money – the prospect of Indian broadcast rights swelling revenue for the LA Games by something in the region of $US200 million – and the thought of eight nations competing for T20 gold is, frankly, far less exciting than watching the weightlifting, or volleyball, or even synchronised swimming.
And that has nothing to do with cricket. On the contrary, cricket is so widely loved it has its day in the sun several times a year, across multiple formats and competitions. To turn it (back) into an Olympic sport dilutes the Olympics as a concept and devalues the sports for which this event is the career summit.
It should be a showcase for excellence of athletes and teams who otherwise slog it out silently, in taekwondo gyms and boxing rings and rowing boats on lakes, for precious little reward other than an obsession satiated and a visualisation that an Olympic podium might one day beckon. If not that, at least a march in the opening ceremony.
This is the case for the viewer, too. Mainstream sport is everywhere, all the time, and it is a rare pleasure to become obsessed with pole vault and diving and gymnastics for a two-week period once every four years.
The IOC and International Cricket Council will disagree. So, too, will breakdancers, who get one shot – at Paris 2024 – before it is scrapped from the 2028 program. Surfing, skating and sport climbing will all stay. The latter is a personal favourite, but sport is subjective, which means there are varying degrees of approval accompanying the inclusion of lacrosse, baseball, softball, squash and flag football for 2028.
Perhaps the answer lies with the host nation – in this case the United States, where the above are popular and widely played. Maybe, come Brisbane 2032, the rugby league Nines, and Commonwealth Games sports netball and lawn bowls will be viewed as Australia-appropriate – if only as a one-off.
The interesting thing about Brisbane is that it also zeroes in on conflicting feelings about soccer. Where the women’s competition features the world’s best players and is still, along with the World Cup, considered one of the top global tournaments, the men are limited to under-23s (and three “over-age players”). What that means is that, while we watch the Matildas play in the women’s tournament, we do not watch the Socceroos play in the men’s.
The Olyroos have long treated the Olympics as an important coming-of-age experience, one which offers valuable game time and smooths their transition into the senior national team. But that, by its very nature, operates against the gold-medal-means-the-world’s-best notion.
Because, even though Lionel Messi does have an Olympics gold medal with Argentina – from Beijing 2008, when he was 22 – sports journalists will never be calling him “Olympic champion Lionel Messi” at first mention.
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