Swimming is by far the lamest mainstream sport. amirite?

Mainstream? People watch it for one week every four years.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

You beat me to it.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Speaking like people watch it like the NBA or NFL😭

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Not sure how popular swimming is in the rest of the world, but with Phelps gone (is he gone?, I don't pay attention to swimming) America probably won't even watch it for that week. It will just go back to being a sport we don't care about.

by jeremiewalter 2 days ago

Tbf nobody really watches swimming unless you're at your kids' swim meet or it's the Olympics. Just like nobody watches running. It's still impressive.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Disagree. Baseball is the lamest mainstream sport.

by Rowlandbeatty 2 days ago

No

by Anonymous 2 days ago

This take is very ignorant. Swimming takes a TON of stamina, and swimmers are in arguably the best shape of any athlete. It takes a lot more effort to move through water than it does through air. Humans are great at swimming, it's simply impossible to move as quickly in water as you do on land. Some of the most epic races, and finishes, I have seen in any sport have been in swimming.

by Flat-Breadfruit 2 days ago

That's OP's point. He's not saying swimmers aren't good athletes, he's saying the physical feat they perform with that athleticism feels unimpressive because humans are so unoptimized for it that the end result simply seems lame.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

We're pretty much unoptimized for every physical feat besides long distance running. Should the only sport we participate in be marathons?

by cassandrapagac 2 days ago

I'm not the one who has a problem with swimming, take it up with OP.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

I think op's point is that humans look awkward and unnatural when they swim. It's true if you compare us to fish or dolphins we are not nearly as quick or graceful. But we can look graceful climbing or jumping or running

by Embarrassed_Big_4212 2 days ago

good swimmers are fairly graceful

by FickleAd 2 days ago

Long distance running is included in pretty much every sport though. OPs point is that swimming is a lot of work for a slow, what they consider boring, pace, whereas other sports, i.e. land sports, may not be as 'optimised' as long distance running, but they have a more equitable trade-off between performance and entertainment

by PersimmonHopeful4360 2 days ago

I don't care about OP's original opinion about it as a sport, but if as you say it's "simply impossible to move as quickly in water as you do on land" in what way are humans also "great at swimming"? It's just true that we don't move as efficiently or quickly as on land so it loses that comparison, and then we're also not as efficient or fast as yknow, actual aquatic animals. So I guess for a land animal we might be pretty good but I don't think that contradicts OP.

by Consistent_Paint 2 days ago

Are humans the fastest swimming land animal?

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Maybe faster than some but I doubt it, I know polar bears are good swimmers and bears in general. I think tigers too? Also depends on what you count as a land animal lol, because penguins are fast in the water but technically ‘live on land'. But counting that feels like cheating

by Consistent_Paint 2 days ago

Bait. Not a legit held opinion. Prop ai.

by raeemmerich 2 days ago

I am in fact real, lurking among the general populace...

by Torphyabdul 2 days ago

I would consider swimming more of an activity than a mainstream sport. I don't know a single person who watches professional swimming and my main form of meeting people is through sports gambling.

by zackmertz 2 days ago

Its huge here in Australia, which makes sense since we're an island and most of our major cities and population are based by the coast

by cassandrapagac 2 days ago

sports are not a circus

by Anonymous 2 days ago

How do you watch the 100m sprint, when drag racing exists?

by Anonymous 2 days ago

The best part is using the word 'lame' in this.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

That's why it's a sport my guy...

by litzyswift 2 days ago

They are also, certainly not moving at walking speed, unless you walk at a 10 minute mile pace. The fact it's jogging pace is pretty mind blowing

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Swimming as a sport is very much not mainstream. Kinda out there in the fringes with Shotput and Discus.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

Swimming is mainstream during the Olympics honestly and I wish it was more mainstream

by Livid_Abroad 2 days ago

No way. As a golfer, golf is easily the lamest

by EmergencyClassic 2 days ago

I don't 100% agree with you. I definitely think there are more boring sports, but I see where you're coming from. I like the shorter sprints, but watching the longer races is like watching a marathon race. The intensity and drama in long distance cardio sports is almost non existent.

by Anonymous 2 days ago

"Swimming is lame because even though its literally the purest form of athletic tests and a display of what the human body can do, its slower than running on land. Meanwhile sports that are literally just games with arbitrary rules like basketball or baseball are somehow cooler even though you would never need to preform that act in the wild at all"

by cassandrapagac 2 days ago