[PGCougar]

I tend to look at the sports versus performance issue as a continuum that gets blurry at the middle area where we see elements of both, but aren't sure if we have a sporting event or a performance. The problem becomes how to define criteria that make something a sport.

Competition in and of itself is not a good criterion. For example, you can have a competition to see who the best accordion player is, but I doubt many here would consider that a sport.

Pure athletic ability on demonstration is probably not a good defining criterion either. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of cheerleaders are in better shape than some golfers. But so are bodybuilders - nope don't even want to go there...

Maybe a better criterion would be scoring. At one end of the spectrum, you have easily measurable methods to determine a score. Golf, baseball, basketball, football, and a host of other traditional "olympic" sports do have a very precise mechanism to score. As you get down to the other end of the contimuum, including some olympic sports such as diving, and figure skating, you have to wait for a panel of judges to tell you who the winner is. Not much different for some of the "extreme sports" gnarly 720's and other terms I'm at a loss to define. Interesting and entertaining, but outside of the spectacular and the dreadful, I'd be hard pressed to tell you who should be the winner.

I'm sure that everyone has a different opinion, but for me, if someone else has to tell me who won, then it aint a sport. Sorry, but I don't think a lot of things, including cheerleading, is a true sport. Just because they show it on ESPN, doesn't make is so.