While it's a lot of fun to watch classic Olympic sports like swimming and beach volleyball, there are many sports that deserve more love from viewers.
1. Whitewater Canoe Slalom
This Olympic sport sees singles, doubles or teams maneuver through an artificially created whitewater course. They have to paddle both upstream and downstream passing through the slaloms in the fastest time possible. This event gets overshadowed by more traditional canoeing and team rowing. But I think this event is mesmerizing, watching the water flow through the course and I am constantly amazed by the athletes who participate in this sport.
2. Synchronized Swimming
Synchronized swimming is definitely overshadowed by our amazing swimmers, like Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky, and by diving. But synchronized swimming is actually a very enjoyable event to watch. It is very satisfying at the end of the routine to see how truly in sync the swimmers were.
3. Rugby Sevens
This sport was brand new in the 2016 Rio Olympics! Rugby is a very under-appreciated sport here in the United States and many people don’t even know anything about rugby. Overshadowed by sports like baseball and football in high schools and colleges, rugby never really took off like it did in other countries. But I would suggest watching it in the next Olympics.
4. Trampoline
This gymnastics event is not as popular with viewers as other gymnastics events, such as the balance beam, floor exercise and vault. I think this has a lot to do with minimal presence of American athletes in the trampoline events. If more Americans participated and were awarded medals, maybe more people would follow this sport. But either way, I would definitely recommend watching it because it is absolutely stunning to see the gymnasts bounce, twirl and flip on the trampoline.
5. Triathlon
The triathlon is an event that consists of swimming, cycling and running. Athletes have to complete all three stages in the fastest time, including transitions between swimming and cycling and then cycling and running. This event may be more popular than the aforementioned ones, but I feel like the triathlon has a tendency to become boring after the almost two hour race. But it shouldn’t be! This event is actually a lot of fun to watch, especially the swimming out in the open waters instead of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. And as an added bonus, American Gwen Jorgensen took gold at the women’s triathlon this year, so maybe America will see another medal at this event in 2020.
