Ranking the funniest Olympic sports (part one)
A scientific survey of how to laugh at the Paris Games.
The Olympics start this week! Do we need to discuss its many major problems as an institution? Not in this space we don’t! We’ve all earned a little treat.
I love watching the Olympics. Every medal chase is like an entire season of sports compressed into three commercial breaks. In the span of an hour, I can go from completely clueless about an athlete to deeply invested in them to criticizing their silver medal performance. It’s great.
The Summer Olympics are particularly watchable, in part because there’s lots on offer. According to the official Olympic website, Paris will feature 32 different sports, while the 2026 Milan Winter Games will have only eight sports, divided into 15 different disciplines (i.e. Alpine Skiing vs. Cross-Country Skiing). That multiplies out to 116 medal events in Milan versus 329 in Paris.
That’s so much to watch! Some sports feature huge star power, like LeBron James or Simone Biles. Some are extensions of heated international rivalries, like football and tennis. And some are invariably hilarious. The sheer number of them practically guarantees it!
I’ve devised a highly scientific scale to rank the sports that are most likely to deliver laughs this summer. Each event was rated by its athletic impressiveness, television watchability, and overall weirdness, then the ratings were averaged for a final score.
If you’re looking for a funny Olympics experience, this is your guide.
The Funniest Sports in the Paris Olympics
Honorable Mentions
Table Tennis, Beach Volleyball, Triple Jump, Race Walk, Handball
Each of these events has highly funny elements, but they also leave something to be desired. Some are overly familiar; table tennis is crazy, but we’ve all seen Forrest Gump. Others are just boring to watch on TV. For example, the Race Walk is possibly the weirdest sport in existence, answering the never-posed question, “How fast can you go if you’re also going slow?” But not even the athletes’ parents want to watch them do it for 50 kilometers.
5. Dressage
Impressiveness: 6
Watchability: 5
Weirdness: 8
Overall: 6.3
Dressage has been part of the Olympics since 1912 and is perhaps the only sport not to have updated its uniforms since then.
The International Equestrian Federation describes dressage as “the highest expression of horse training.” I describe it as HORSEY DANCE!
Freestyle dressage routines are akin to a ballroom dance between a horse and a rich weirdo. The idea of the sport is extremely kooky, and I don’t doubt that the whole thing is quite difficult. But the humor here is unfortunately front-loaded because the routines start to get repetitive quickly. It turns out that horses and myself are similar, in that we both have a limited repertoire of dance moves. (And beautiful legs.)
4. Artistic Swimming
Impressiveness: 8
Watchability: 4
Weirdness: 8
Overall: 6.7
The governing body of artistic swimming changed its name from synchronized swimming back in 2018, in hopes that a new name would increase its popularity. Weird choice, if you ask me, since synchronization is the sport’s defining characteristic! But hey, at least it worked, and “artistic swimmers” now rival NFL quarterbacks in terms of popularity and financial success…
Nevertheless, artistic swimming is highly impressive and highly weird. But I think water sports are inherently less watchable than other options because of the limited camera angeles. Is that a hot take? Or maybe a wet take?
Let’s also recognize that Team USA decision-makers made a historic blunder by choosing to leave boundary-breaking athlete Bill May at home. The backstory: synchronized swimming (yeah, I said it, keep crying lib) has always been exclusively female at the Olympic level, even though men could compete in other major competitions. However, a recent rule change opened the door for men to compete in Paris, and May, a 45-year-old openly gay man, was part of Team USA as recently as February at the World Aquatic Championships. Meanwhile, Equestrian (horsey dance) is the only other Olympic sport in which men and women are allowed to compete in the same field.
Bummer decision. The Olympics thrives on heartwarming stories, and thy left a great one on the table.
(My bad, I said we were ignoring institutional problems today!)
Check back Wednesday for the top three sports in our rankings!
Questions for the Comments
What Olympic sport would you have the best chance of medaling in?
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I certainly have Olympic fever!! I love watching all events and I too think there is a lot of humor there!! You are so funny, Greg, I laughed so hard at your humor!!
As far as the Olympics are concerned, I’ve been living under a Kamala-shaped rock, but now I’m excited for your top three and might even watch something!