Why billiards will never be in Olympics

I only first heard of artistic pool within the last month. Prior to that I would have assumed someone was talking about regular trick shot exhibitions.
 
Snooker was already in the paralympics but only for men.
 
MattPoland said:
I only first heard of artistic pool within the last month. Prior to that I would have assumed someone was talking about regular trick shot exhibitions.
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You often see livestream or replay of it on https://tv.kozoom.com/fr/tous-les-billards/live?page=2 . there is even a tournament schedule on the first page, but it's in 229 days... In my country there was 4 event for the championship this year. Of course it's make it one of the less played version of billiards, but I think it's on of the most enjoyable to watch for fans or regular people.

I am very surprised you see this more as an exhibition, but maybe it's cultural difference. There far less american pool table in my country than carom tables.
 
Amaury said:
Wtf are you talking about? Of course people play it.
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Seriously? Compared to the general billiards community aka pool/billiards/snooker how many play artistic???? Its virtually non-existent. Really didn't think i needed to explain myself. Based on the WPA's sycophant-like relationship with the Oly's i'd say that if billiards ever gets in it will be Chinese8b/3c/snooker, either one or more of these games. Artistic will never be an Oly medal game.
 
artistic billiards was actually on broadcast tv some decade ago or more, on eurosport. it was quite fun the way it was produced. but i doubt it would be as fun live, it kinda needs the telestrator outlining the shots
 
Amaury said:
You often see livestream or replay of it on https://tv.kozoom.com/fr/tous-les-billards/live?page=2 . there is even a tournament schedule on the first page, but it's in 229 days... In my country there was 4 event for the championship this year. Of course it's make it one of the less played version of billiards, but I think it's on of the most enjoyable to watch for fans or regular people.

I am very surprised you see this more as an exhibition, but maybe it's cultural difference. There far less american pool table in my country than carom tables.
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Up until now I've only seen things like Florian do his "show". Jumping balls into boots between peoples legs. Shooting a masse around people laying on the table. Spinning an egg shaped ball. Spending 5 minutes setting up 6 balls into a configuration to make them all in one shot and then fail and tell a long story while you set it up again. Passing lane shots. Timing shots. Weird cheater shots with rails and cues on the table. Yadda yadda.

And I just assumed artistic competitions were just like a bunch of trick shot artists competing against each other by doing that same routine but just challenging each other like a glorified version of HORSE like they play in basketball.

I don't know, maybe that's still what artistic pool is at some degree. I only recently heard about this whole deal of putting dots all over the table and having a catalog of specific shots with point values based on the dots or something like that. I still don't really know what that is. I tried watching once and was confused so quickly I didn't give it a fair shake. I saw like one shot, said "huh", and flipped to something else.
 
gmiller said:
There are several shooting events where the main athletic ability is to just stand still. There are quite a few 10m air rifle and 10m pistol events. There also skeet shooting. You won't see fat people in the 10m air rifle because resting your elbow on your hip bone allows for a huge advantage. You will see some big and older people in the air pistol and skeet events.

What makes a sport good for the Olympics is mostly profitability. If every country sent 5 pool players, that'd be over 1000 players. It'd require a long tournament at a specialized venue where it's hard for spectators to watch.

In most events, you'll have 8-10 players competing at a time and eliminate all but a couple of them in a matter of minutes.

Things like gymnastics and track and field, sometimes just have one person competing at a time in an event, but the facility allows for many different events to take place at the same time.

With pool. It'd just be a giant sea of tables where no one could see a thing.
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Air rifle event. Thats like the air guitar events, right ? People just mime shooting rifles.
 
King T said:
You right and its really strange that people who post here would demean the game. There are plenty of events in the Olympics that could be called less entertaining and require far less skill..., artistic swimming, break dancing, sport climbing, free style sking, curling???

I would have to believe that there are more people playing and watching Pool than those.
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Agree 100%. And if a sport requires a physical challenge to become an Olympics sport, then why isn't baseball included? Hitting a Major League pitcher requires more physical skill than anything else in team sports---the best hitters fail 70% of the time.
 
muskyed said:
You could but you won't see much of that in archery. In 3D events you might see a few guts hanging out, but for the most part the top archers are in very good shape.
Wife and I have shot a lot of archery and competition, all the way to national level.
Much more physical than pool, especially at the top level.
I really think the problem with pool is most really don't understand it, or what is involved to be at the top level.
Some say it's too long, yet they will watch sports like golf or biking.
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Maybe it has to do with the differences between sports and games. I myself and not trying to define them.
But i also image chess will never be in the olympics, and i do not think anyone can argue the amount of skill at the top level. but it is much different then swimming,diving,running.
 
Taxi said:
Agree 100%. And if a sport requires a physical challenge to become an Olympics sport, then why isn't baseball included? Hitting a Major League pitcher requires more physical skill than anything else in team sports---the best hitters fail 70% of the time.
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It was from '92-'08 and then Tokyo in '20 and supposed to be in LA in '28.
 
I don't know about archery being physically demanding.

I used to bow hunt as a kid.

A wise man said that anything that you can drink and smoke while doing is a game not a sport..........
 
overlord said:
I don't know about archery being physically demanding.

I used to bow hunt as a kid.

A wise man said that anything that you can drink and smoke while doing is a game not a sport..........
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Curling should include drinking. Like you put a full beer on the stone and if it gets to the other end without spillin any you get extra points. ;)
 
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