Question of the day - what is a sport? This is something which exercises (sorry!) me coming from an Olympic perspective; what sports should be included and what ones not? And it seems from a collection of articles in my inbox this morning that cheerleaders have the same problem.
Really if you leave cheerleaders on the sidelines (again apologies) then perhaps gymnastics or synchronised swimming would also be voted out? Yes, cheerleaders train incredibly hard but are they there as an extra to the main event or are they athletes in their own right? Maybe any American readers out there can enlighten us on how this is seen on the ground over there as we don't have a huge cheerleader tradition in European sports. I saw some photos of all-male troupes, is this growing or just a gimmick?
You can read up on the cheerleader debate here on the SMH from Australia, the Daily Mail from the UK and on Jezebel.
What other sports do you think suffer from an image problem?
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