LifeOnTheEdge

Life on the Edge

Remember our formula for working out whether a game was a sport or not?

Well, to be a sport you must pass the 5 following traits...

1. An activity you do for pleasure
2. It requires physical effort
3. It requires certain Skills
4. It is usually done according to some rules.
5. It is competitive in nature.

The following activities seem to cause the most chatter.

So lets discuss each one

Fishing - Rumoured to be the most played sport in the world.

It definitely satisfies all the 5 criteria for being a sport.

I guess a lot of people do it for recreation rather than in a competitive nature. However with that said a lot of sport fall into this category. For example cycling, yachting, skateboarding, hang-gliding, horse riding.

So I guess you can do most sports for recreation as well as for competition.

Golf - Probably the most controversial and most debated as to whether it is a sport or not.

We have it failing test 2: "It requires physical effort" and here is why.

Probably the most physical effort you'll do on a Golf course is lug your Golf kit around. The professionals don't even do that, they have a caddy. Some Golf courses don't even allow you to walk you must use a Golf cart. If Golf is a sport hammering a nail into a piece of wood must also be called a sport. Therefore Golf is at best a game.

Darts / Pool / Bowling / Chess - All on the verge of graduating to a sport. However like Golf failing test 2: "It requires physical effort". Chess is an interesting example as studies show that you can burn up to 6,000 calories per day while playing chess​. In comparison Golf burns some where between 800 & 3,000 calories depending on whether you walk, carry your kit or use a cart.

Sprinting - More controversy here.

We have Sprinting failing test 3: "It requires certain Skills" and our argument is all healthy people can run. As a baby you learn to crawl, walk and then run. We do admit everyone obviously can't run as fast as an Olympic athlete. However we put this down to extreme hard work and practice. We do acknowledge long distance running as a sport as not all healthy people are able to say run a marathon. There is strategy to a long distance race.

Exercise - Not a sport or a game.

We have this failing two tests:

4. It is usually done according to some rules.
5. It is competitive in nature.

Some people say that certain exercises need to be done a certain way. However everyone's rules seems to differ in some slightly different way. Other people say it may be competitive as you may challenge somebody to see who can do the most of a certain type of exercise, say squats. For us exercise just doesn't make the cut as a sport.