Which Olympic Sport is the Hardest?

If you ever look at Yahoo! you may have seen an article last week with this same title in which Fourth Place Medal wrote a blog ranking all 32 sports of the summer games (http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-fourth-place-medal/olympic-sport-hardest-fourth-place-medal-ranks-32-195706044--oly.html).  Although it's clear that the article wasn't meant to be taken seriously (or was the author really that ignorant???), it still made me furious to see his joke of a list.   Not even considering the fact that wrestling ranked 11th, the writer obviously didn't know what he was talking about.  For starters, he grouped boxing, wrestling, and taekwondo in the same category by saying:

12. Boxing; 11. Wrestling; 10. Taekwondo -- If this seems too low for three sports that involve you getting hit in the face, you're probably right. But if you go full coward and submit immediately, it'll be over quickly. They can't punch you when you're on the ground, right?

Wrestling doesn't even allow punching, for goodness sakes.  Wouldn't it make more sense to classify wrestling with judo, which was ranked 9th?  We use some of the same moves, much unlike the other two.  Also, despite gymnastics being as difficult as it is, he didn't even bother ranking it, as well as a few others, because they are "judged activities" and "not sports."  And the worst of it all was that equestrian ranked number one.  Really?  The horse does the majority of the strenuous work; you're just along for the ride.

Now that I've got that rant off my chest, it's time to get pumped up because the 2012 London Olympics kick off with the opening ceremonies in 10 days!  Wrestling will run from August 5th through 12th, with two or three weight classes per day - that's another reason why wrestling is one of the toughest Olympic sports - under the new format an entire bracket is finished in one day, meaning as many as five or six matches in one day.  Although there's nine days between the opening ceremonies and the wrestling, there are still plenty of great sports to watch.

It goes without saying that wrestling is and will always be my favorite Olympic sport, but I, unlike that other blogger, give credit where credit is due, and respect many other worthy sports.  I love watching all of the individual sports, for one because the team sports can be seen on TV all the time whereas the Olympics come once every four years, but also because it takes a certain type of character and discipline to compete in individual sports.  Because I like these other sports, they are ones that I recommend as cross-training or if you want to compete in other sports in the off-season (although competing in team sports has benefits, too).  I'm not going to rank them all, but I'm going to give you my non-wrestling favorites, in no particular order:

Gymnastics - Probably one of the most impressive sports to watch - can you do any of the stuff they do?
Track and Field - Especially decathlon, because those guys are good at every event
Swimming - Much harder than running in my opinion
Weightlifting - Because who wouldn't benefit from being a little stronger
Boxing - I like the hand-to-hand combat aspects it shares with wrestling
Judo - ditto
Taekwondo - ditto
Triathlon - 1 mile swim, 25 mile bike ride, 6 mile run - 'nuff said
Canoe/Kayak - Canoe is actually a team sport, but they're both still good workouts
Cycling - Also a great workout

Support Team USA,
Jeff