Why is race walking an olympic sport?

Question

i'm watching it now and was wondering why they have this kind of sport. this sport plus handball plus badmitten shouldnt be held at all

Answer 1

If you ask why is race walking an olympic sport then you have to ask why swimming has 4 different strokes per distance.  If swimmers are allowed to have races that don't identify the fastest to get from point a to point b, but rather the fastest using a particular style, so too can runners.  Walking is simply a different style.  

In fact, given that swimming has 4 different styles, we should have 2 more styles in track too and for each distance all the way down to 100m events.  The 100m walk, 100m crawl, 100m backwards run, and of course the ever-popular 100m IM relay.

lol ;)  But, it does make you wonder....

Answer 2

They need to combine some of these sports to make them actual sports.  For instance, equestrian events should be combined with archery and shooting.  Walking has been around since the beginning, I think, but the addition of all these ridiculous sports like trampoline is diluting the Olympics.  They need to assign degrees of difficulty to events for the medal counts.  Why should a gold in trampoline be worth the same as a gold in the decathlon?

Yoda:  By combining sports, I meant archery while riding a horse as one event or shooting while riding a horse, like John Wayne.  It was just a joke.  But thanks for the clarification of what the pentathlon is.  I'm amazed at how diverse their range of skills is and how difficult it must be to become proficient in just one of those events.  

Golf is also popular worldwide.  Why is shooting an Olympic sport but not golf?

Answer 3

rillaf: The modern pentathlon combines 10m air pistol, one touch epee fencing, 200m freestyle, horseback riding show jumping, and 3000m running.

Race-walking is much more difficult than one can imagine.  The distances are generally much longer than running distances, and throughout that time, you must obey all rules of race-walking, such as when you can lift your feet to take the next step, and when you can bend your knees.  It requires a lot of mental endurance, as you only have three penalties, so when you are told you are penalized, you much race much more conservatively, or else your entire race is over.  Jane Saville of Australia in Sydney 2000 came down the home stretch in the gold medal position, but was told that she committed a third violation and that her race was over.  She was extremely devastated and burst into tears.

Badminton requires a lot more endurance than you believe as well.  The shuttlecock is light so each point lasts very long, there are typically 2-4 jump smashes by at least one player during each point, and one most move back and forth and side-to-side.  Constantly jump smashing and covering drop shots and clears gets very tiring very fast.

You can have your own opinions about these sports, but they are all generally popular enough worldwide to be held.

Answer 4

Haha.  I agree with gwbush2004 on the swimming comparisons.  Also handball and badminton seem to make a lot more sense than some other sports I've seen in the Olympics.  Dressage anyone?