Should Cheer Leading be an Olympic Sport? [MAYBE I SHOULD SAY "SPOILER ALERT" HERE]
So I am up in the middle of the night because I am an old man...The listing for TV says women's gold medal water polo, which at least sounds interesting AND the USA is still in it AND the USA is the defending gold medalist....well the water polo match was apparently already over (USA did it again!) and I watch a woman doing a combination ballet and floor exercise with a hula hoop. That was followed by other women doing something similar with a child's playground ball. One thing that struck me was that they all wore sequined leotards and had their hair pulled up in buns, all looked like the synchronized swimmers without the nose plugs, (or I guess if it's one contestant it is "artistic swimming.") I don't doubt for a second that the artistic and synchronized swimmers are athletic. Some of them make water polo goalies look lame and they hold their breaths for an interminable period. All of this led me to think they should have somthing like the pentathlon where competitors (apparently mostly Eastern European women) compete in both rhythmic gymnastics and artistic swimming, perhaps with a ping-pong, er, table tennis, ball or badmitton shuttle cock...or curling stone.