Poll: Is Scuba Diving a Sport ?

[Zeina]

Mo2vation once bubbled...
Soccer - not a sport, its a recreation.

Err Ken, with all due respect, have you ever watched a soccer game??? (US team did pretty good during the 2002 Worldcup )
These guys run for 2*45 minutes strait, and they don't get breathes like football players do.

Is Scuba-Diving a sport?
In my experience, yes.
Trust me, with all the current you have to deal with in the Maldives before you even get to the dive spot, it certainly is a sport
Ever tried to keep up with a cruising manta? Better be in excellent shape...

My 2 cents ut:

 

[O-ring]

If you dive a couple times a year to look at pretty fishes, it is not a sport. If you actively train for it and pursue aggressive diving and aggressive training, it is definitely a sport.

Soccer is more of a sport than American football by a long shot...I am on the fence about Nascar...I don't like it, so I want to say it is not a sport...I think it belongs in another category - motorsport.

 

[Mo2vation]

Actually, I can't defend it.

In an effort to keep this a Scuba Board while illuminating my position on the game, yes, I have (tried) watched soccer on TV. Its like watching a bunch of ants chase around an asprin on a ping-pong table. Its completely unwatchable. Defending a goal wider than my garage is not exciting. Low scores are due to the complete inability to kick the ball into that Hanger - not due to stellar, flopping goal keeping.

Yes I've played Soccer - Varsity letter in High School (big deal - I sucked.) I walked on and made the team. It's what we did between seasons of real sports.

Want to talk about running around and athletic ability? Please. You can't even put Soccer in the same league as Hockey or Basketball. Its up there with Curling. Soccer's bogus sport status is something I have very, very strong opinions on. Let me apologize to the group for foisting my personal agenda on the board. I get a little warm on the Soccer subject. I'll pull the rip cord here.


Back to Diving.

Maybe Freediving is the closest diving gets to sport. Competirion, sponsorship, world records, bodies at risk, etc... With the Discovery Channel and those types of networks I think there is now an a vehicle to get exposure, deliver an audience, and therefore bring in sponsorship and more dollars to it.

Thoughts?

Ken

 

[bwerb]

If it can't kill you, it's not a sport. Scuba diving is a "non-competitive" sport in that you are not racing to do something against a clock or team but the inherently lethal consequences of screwing-up definitely place scuba diving in the sport category.

I think it is every bit a sport as rockclimbing (although it has become competitive in certain arenas), mountaineering, kayaking (which also obviously has some competitive arenas as well)etc, etc.

On an off-topic rant...Golf however is NOT a sport, it's a passtime. Unless some moron beans you in the head or you drop-dead from heat exhaustion from hauling your dehydrated, out-of-shape self through the companies annual golf tourney, you really do not have the opportunity to get yourself killed if you screw up.ut: :boom:

 

[caymaniac]

Scuba diving is a recreational sport in which there is no score
( unless you consider your depth and air used as your score )
Also in Scuba diving nobody wins ( unless you consider a safe dive is winning ).
I try to better my score on dive trips! And win!!!

Caymaniac

 

[nickjb]

Mo2vation once bubbled...
Actually, I can't defend it.

...

Its completely unwatchable.

...

Ken

Its lucky for us that 95% of the world population don't share your opinions. You can keep basketball and hockey in your local leagues. The rest of the world, we play football (soccer)

As for scuba, Its a sport in the general definition but that doesn't mean you have to play it as such.

 

[JamesK]

nickjb once bubbled...


Its lucky for us that 95% of the world population don't share your opinions. You can keep basketball and hockey in your local leagues. The rest of the world, we play football (soccer)

How about, we keep hockey and football, you keep your version on football, and we give basket ball to the Chinese? We could then give baseball to the Cubans or the Russians.

 

[O-ring]

"America's Game"...riiiiight. I would rather watch Golf or even *shudder* Nascar than baseball.

Proper football (soccer) is much more entertaining than our version...I think we had to invent a sport that cheeseburger and Budweiser pounding Americans could play since we couldn't hang with the rest of the world. I think that's why the plays are so short...everyone is out of breath from the 15 seconds of activity on the field.

 

[Soggy]

JamesK once bubbled...
NASCAR is a sport. A competitive sport. Thank you very much.

NASCAR may be a sport, but doesn't deserve the attention it gets.
CART and WRC are real sports...they make more than left hand turns. Picture driving a turbo-charged 2 liter 4 cylinder car at 100mph+ in dirt, mud, snow, ice, gravel with trees and 100ft drops inches from your wheels with one guy telling you "there's a tight right turn coming up 50 feet away." That's racing. Oh...then do that at night in the snow.

 

[JamesK]

I love WRC and BTCC. To me rubbin is racin! I agree with the fact that I think they should get more coverage. However, they simply do not draw in the fans like NASCAR does. If you could get 120,000 people to go to a WRC event here in the states, and a few million watching nationwide, then it would get better sponsors and more exposure. Oh, and I know about turbo charged 4 cylinder 2.0liter motors. One of my pasttimes is building high revving Honda motors for turbo and nitrous.

However, I still like NASCAR. The fact that most of the races are simply left hand turns is not a factor. (They do about 6 road coarses a year) Try piloting a vehicle with so much torque it makes your teeth shake, around a track at speeds close to 200mph with 42 others right in front of you. Now try passing them through a turn where you are only inches from sending them or yourself into a wall. If you think about the talent that a good NASCAR driver has, you would appreciate it almost as much as your do WRC. Notice I said almost.