Towards Classifying Sports

Sports fascinate and provide an avenue for fulfilment of desires in more ways than one can imagine. There are thousands of sporting activities that occur all over the world. There have been many attempts at defining sports something few past posts have managed to do. Yet, to some, there is no consensus on whether an all-inclusive definition of sport can be obtained. This post is not to attempt another definition for sports but seek to classify sports in different ways. There have been many attempts to classify sports. Bernard Suits and his followers have attempted to classify into refereed and judged sports. The former are a subset of games whereas the latter might be sports but not games. There have been more attempts to refine the classification. However, the current post will not go into those dimensions at this stage but seek to build a preliminary broad based classification of various sporting activities irrespective of whether they are judged, refereed or otherwise.

 

The first category is obviously, Citius, Altius, Fortius, or its translation into English “faster, stronger, higher”. This is the category wherein the results not just are objective but clear indicators of who is the fastest, strongest, highest, and longest or whatever adjectives one might want to attribute to the athletes.  The track and field events are the best examples for the same. Even the all-round events like decathlon represent the same since they convert the measures into points to build a common minimum denominator for comparison across disciplines. The swimming events are another example where the fastest swimmers win. In weightlifting, it is the highest weight lifted that fetches the medal denoting the strongest. In rowing or canoeing, it is the fastest boats that win the race. In canoe slalom, there are penalties attached for not navigating the gates properly but are enrichers rather than primary determinants something one can see in equestrian jumping events. One observes these fastest being the events including speed ice skating, roller skating, alpine and Nordic skiing, bobsled and luge, among many other sporting examples.

 

The next category one can classify is alternating roles. Some sports have different roles to be played at different times and these roles alternate through the sport. A great instance for the same is cricket. Teams alternate between batting and fielding before the one with the higher run aggregate wins the game. One team can perform only one role at a time and thus they take turns at batting and fielding. Similar examples are provided in baseball and softball. These too witness alternating roles between striking and pitching. Tag sports like kho-kho in India too have alternating roles as integral part something between chasing and defending thus becoming part of this category.  

 

The third category could be termed as Outscore your opponent- Whole court. Sports like soccer, field hockey etc. fall into this category. While each side has its territory to defend, the movement can be across the whole court. The objective is here to outscore one’s opponent. In soccer, the objective while defending one’s goal or territory is to move to other’s territory and score a goal, something similar in field or ice hockey, basketball, handball among other sports. The winner would be the one who scores more goals or points compared to their opponents. Another unique characteristic is primarily these are team sports though one might see a rare instance of one to one event like Red Bull one to one basketball.

 

Fourthly, put the ball in others court. There are two subcategories in this classification. Firstly, is the players stay within their territory and seek to put the ball into the other’s court to ensure they don’t return. Every time the return happens, the onus is again on the team to put it back in opponent’s court. A good example is volleyball, lawn tennis or badminton. In each of these sports, the players stay in territory and seek to put the ball in the other’s court to gain points. These often are played over multiple sets or games and can be team or individual sports. The second sub category is while the objective remains the same, the players are allowed to move across territories. A good example is squash wherein the players play in an all glass enclosed court and can move anywhere in the court. Yet the basic principle of putting the ball in the opponent’s court to score points or goals remain.

 

Fifthly, one can move into combat sports. It is the sport wherein the strongest wins the contest. Unlike the first category wherein, the sports were independent events with no interpersonal contests, these are combat contests on one to one or team wise. Sports like boxing, wrestling judo etc. fall into this category. While in boxing, it is about punching, it is grappling in wrestling, grappling with overpowering your opponent in judo to striking in karate to weapons in fencing with the human itself as weapon in kabaddi, all these sports are characterised by the nature of the combat. Given they are one to one battles, they are classified by weight categories to enable equalisation of contests.

 

Sixth, one can move into the target sports. A diverse category might exist with heterogeneous activities. Yet what would combine them under a common banner would be a target that would have to be struck to win the contest. There is little common prima facie between golf and bowling, snooker and lawn bowls, but the common denominator is the target they seek to attain and strike. In golf, it is the minimum number of strokes from the tee-off to putting the ball in the hole that counts for the winner. In bowling, it is striking the ten or nine pins in the alley that counts. In lawn bowls, it is the placing the ball closest to the cue ball, in snooker, the target is putting the balls in the pockets on a snooker table that matters out. Shooting is about hitting bulls eye in the set number of shots something similar observed in archery too wherein instead of the shots from a gun, it is the arrows that are released from a bow.

 

There are some hybrid sports as well which combine multiple sports something like triathlon, modern pentathlon, biathlon among other things. In some sports like triathlon where all the events, running, swimming, cycling can be measured using the common denominator, the principles applied would be simple whereas in sports like modern pentathlon, the performances are converted into points for ease of measurement. In the sports discussed above, the common factor has been the objectivity in scoring. There is a clear measure which is intelligible to external audience and thus can determine the winner.  Though there are complaints in scoring through judges in combat sports like boxing, still some objectivity is discerned in scoring or at least sought to be achieved through multiple means. Yet there are sports, wherein, it is the aesthetics that count and thus objectivity in scoring will have to be replaced by judging.

 

This brings to the seventh category what can be termed as judged sports or performance sports. The winner is somebody judged as best performer. Gymnastics, diving among others are instances of these categories. In these sports, it is the aesthetics with which the performers demonstrate matter. Invariably, this becomes difficult to judge and also to compare performances across time and space. However, what has evolved is a set of standardised routines, the judges expect and the manner in which the competitors execute the same that determine the points. It is the bounded in standardized routines rather than free routines. In gymnastics, in each apparatus, the performers are expected to demonstrate certain tricks and routines which becomes the basis for judging. Similarly, in diving, the manner in which the somersaults happen are indicated in advance to the judges who they base their scoring on the execution and style. Similar methods have been adopted in figure skating and dance among others. There are usually more number of judges or specialised judges for each routine thus seeking to minimize errors and improve consistency. Yet, all said and done, these artistic sports are perhaps the most popular and attract large audiences live and televised and thus are star attractions.

 

Aside of the categories discussed in this post, there are many others. Sports like chess or bridge which do not any physical skill and often called mind sports can be also be termed as sports according to many terminologies. Yet, since the mind sports require separate treatment, it is not discussed here. There are of course blood sports like hunting, bull fighting, or fighting between animals or insects like cock-fighting or cricket-fighting which might have been classified as sports once but today their status is disputed. There are certain other sports where animals are involved with human role being confined to a guide or trainer or owner but the activity is purely executed by the animal like the dogs for instance. These animal sports too are kept outside the purview of this post. There is an increasing popularity of what is termed is e-sports or competitive video gaming. Similarly sports based on virtual reality or augment reality too are emerging in big way. The current post however, does not factor these as these too need a different treatment.

 

The current post in classifying sports might suffer from the problems of over or under inclusion or exclusion. Yet, an attempt is being made to categorize sports into different classes based on certain characteristics of their play, scoring or constitutive or facilitative rules. There is a beginning that is made and a different approach sought in contrast to conventional approaches. There would have to deeper engagement to test each sport against these categories to validate the propositions elucidated in the current post.