Sport or Not

Two events recently have made me think about what we consider sport.

First, some background: I'm the captain of the Oxford University Swimming Club, which is a Full Blue sport. There are three classification for sports clubs here at Oxford: Full Blue, Discretionary Full Blue, and Half Blue, which refers to the type of school colours award you receive at the end of the year. Generally, the more popular (as in, the more people who participate in it worldwide) and difficult (as in, difficult to excel) sports will be Full Blue sports; those a rung down are Discretionary Blues (which mean an automatic Half Blue, along with the possibility of a Blue to those who really excel), and another rung down are Half Blue sports. This is not to impugn the Half Blue sports- criteria is very stringent, and many important and major sports, such as Archery, Gymnastics, Riding, Lightweight Rowing, Volleyball and Water Polo are Half Blue sports. It's a rough description but it should suffice for the purposes of this discussion. For a greater idea of how status is awarded, check the Oxford Sports website.

Recently Mindy asked me what exactly the criteria for awarding of Blues status here at Oxford is. It turns out that she was wondering because the Oxford University Dancesport women's team is a Full Blue sport, but for the men merely a Half Blue (Dancesport is competitive ballroom dancing). I located the exact criteria on the Oxford Men's Blues Committee website and showed them to her. She read them over and expressed an opinion that Men's Dancesport should be at least a Discretionary Full Blue and wondered why there was a large difference between one gender and the other. I explained that the process of upgrading of status required at least nine of the fourteen Captains of the Full Blue sports approve of the upgrade.

"That's probably why!" she grinned. I raised my eyebrows. Clearly she felt that the difference between the status of the male and female dancesport teams was reflective of the different gender opinions towards ballroom dancing in general. Not being in the mood to argue, I shrugged and let it go.

Later, however, I learnt that the Women's Blues Committee awarded the Oxford University Lifesaving Club Half Blue status. My female counterpart, the Women's Swimming Captain, voted against it but was outvoted. I was stunned at the decision. Lifesaving is a sport?!

These two events have got me thinking. What exactly is a sport? How do we judge the criteria by which we classify activities into sports?

Obviously, to be a sport you need an organisation and a set of rules which allow the same sport to be played anywhere inthe world. You also need an element of competitiveness. You also require physical ability, beyond a normal non-trained human capacity. Not many people would quibble with those points. There are probably other factors which we can consider.

However, I would like to focus my discussion on a rather controversial belief that I have long held: that a sport is not a sport without an objective standard.

In other words, anything that requires human subjectivity to interpret is not a sport. This list would include many activities which we have classified as sports, including gymnastics, figure skating, body building, diving, synchronised swimming, and fo course ballroom dancing (My apologies to Mindy, who has been dancing for well over a decade).

The purity of sport lies in the essential comparison of two or more people or groups. By objectively comparing, we satisfy within ourselves a need for competition, for conquest, for victory. There is nothing more satisfying than, at the end of the day, standing proudly on the battlefield, exhausted and victorious. We know when we have won. We know who is better. To me, that is what the term 'sport' connotes: objective comparison. That is the essence of sport.

But by allowing a third party judge to evaluate who is better or worse does not answer that question. It merely tells us who is better or worse in the eyes of the judges. It devalues the competition by framing it entirely within the subjective viewpoint of a group of people. More often than not, comprehension of the standards requires a technical understanding that is not easily accessible to most people.

Thus, judged events lack the purity of objectivity which is essential to a sport being such.

I am not saying that activities which rely on judges are not athletic, nor that people who participate in them are not athletes. Many of these activities require tremendous amounts of strength and ability, discipline, dedication and hard work. It is definitely a lot of fun to compete in any of these events and the thrill of achievement is definitely extant.

Also, I would like to stress the difference between judges, who decide the outcome of an event, versus referees, who merely interpret rules and ensure that they are enforced.

But these are not sports. Call them what you like- activities, events, 'judged sports'- I wouldn't call them sports.