Olympic Smoking: If You Can Smoke While You’re Doing It, It’s Not A Sport

Some events in the Olympics are not sports, obviously. That's why it's called the Olympic Games. We can argue all day long about the merits of water polo. But I have invented a one-point test to save us all some time, at least, figuring out which events are sports and which are games:

If you can smoke while you’re doing it, it’s a game — not a sport.

You should not smoke because it’s very bad for you. But for the purpose of clarity, let us ponder which Olympic Games you can smoke through:

THESE ARE GAMES, NOT SPORTS
[] Badminton: Smoke away, smoky!
[] Trampoline: Really? Trampoline?
[] Baseball: It’s feasible that even the pitcher and catcher could smoke during the heat of action. Maybe this is why it’s been announced baseball will go away after this Olympics.
[] Softball: Who couldn’t smoke during a softball game?
[] Shooting: This is the no-duh non-sport. Holding a gun and aiming? What’s next? Playing “Call of Duty 4” on Xbox 360 in the Olympics?
[] Table Tennis: You could smoke a whole pack.
[] Volleyball: Smoke, serve, volley, smoke.
[] Beach Volleyball: Come on. Be serious.
[] Fencing: This one’s tricky. You could smoke while swinging swords, except you have to wear a mask while fencing. So it’s a game with mask interference.
[] Handball: Remember when John Candy smoked while playing racquetball in “Splash”? Right.
[] Sailing: Are you serious? Some of those guys are actually pudgy.
[] Equestrian: Riding a horse while smoking? Very do-able.
[] Archery: You can totally smoke while using a bow and arrow.
[] Diving: Yeah, your cigarette would go out when you hit the water. But you could have a cigarette hanging out of your mouth all the way down to the water.
[] Synchronized Swimming: If you could somehow buy a cigarette that wouldn’t go out when wet, you could call this synchronized smoking.
[] Water Polo: This is another game trying to look like a sport by making it too wet to smoke.
[] Weightlifting: Yeah, you could smoke and lift weights. So it’s a game. But it’s not even a game. Isn’t lifting weights the thing you do before you do another game or sport? Mostly it seems like preparation.
[] Wrestling: It’s a close call whether you could smoke, but you could probably light one up, then stab your rival with the fire end of the butt.

THESE ARE SPORTS, NOT JUST GAMES
[] Swimming: One puff on a cigarette would kill your lungs while swimming, even if you could keep a butt lit.
[] Cycling: You would die while smoking.
[] Boxing: You’d be too worn out to smoke.
[] Track and Field: No way could you smoke.
[] Triathlon: You wouldn’t make it a mile smoking.
[] Soccer: No smoking possible, except maybe by the goalie.
[] Judo: You might think you could smoke and punch, but you can’t. You’d get your butt kicked.
[] Modern Pentathlon: Some of the parts of pentathlon are obviously smoking-possible games, like shooting a gun, but other parts are athletic, like swimming and running. It’s a game-sport.
[] Tennis: Hmm, you could almost smoke while playing professional tennis. But not quite.
[] Gymnastics: You could not do a triple summersault while puffing.
[] Rowing: Rowing is elitist, but it’ll wear you out.
[] Canoe/Kayak: It seems as if you could smoke and row a canoe, but rowing really does take it out of you.
[] Field Hockey: No smoking. Field hockey is pretty strenuous on a constant basis.
[] Taekwondo: No, no, no smoking. Only chopping with your hands and stuff.
[] Rhythmic Gymnastics: Rhythmic gymnastics may look stupid, but you wouldn’t be able to keep your breath while twirling.