cooperscuba
Contributor
e internet is full of people who say diving is a sport, not surprisingly they all seem to be divers and their reasons are varied and many but a very common reason given is that you burn lots of calories; thats all well and good but burning calories is not a recognized criteria for defining a sport. Do we consider people who attend Weight Watchers sportspeople? Of course not. Burning calories is exercise and while most sports involve exercise, exercise is not a definition or criteria of a sport. Another common reason given is, like skydiving, you have to be certified to go scuba diving. By that definition doctors, nurses and accountants are all sportspeople when obviously they are not, or at least in their respective careers and, in its infancy, you didnt need any certification to go diving. I doubt most people who say diving is a sport, based on their rationalizations, could actually define sport.
Scuba diving is classed as an extreme sport but so is bungee jumping. An extreme sport is simply an activity that is perceived as having a high level of inherent danger. Just because something is classed as an extreme sport, doesnt make it a sport. I would also hazard a guess that scubas extreme sport classification has more to do with insurance companies and marketing than the sportiness of diving.
So, if simply classing something as a sport doesnt make it a sport, what does?
SportAccord, the de facto representative of international sport, uses the following four criteria to define a sport:
i) It should be in no way harmful to any living creature thats spearfishing straight out the window then.
ii) It should not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier scuba most certainly qualifies as a sport on that point.
iii) It should not rely on any luck element specifically designed in to the sport i.e. a level playing field I dont even know how to apply that to scuba to be honest but, I guess, my guests and I were lucky yesterday when a reef shark happened to swim by, so that must disqualify us as sportspeople.
iv) The fourth criteria is the biggest stumbling block for scuba being a sport as classified by SportAccord It should have an element of competition i.e. an opponent or opponents trying to score more goals than you, or trying to beat your time etc. Diving simply does not have that.
There are opposing views regarding competition as a defining element of a sport As an example, the Council of Europe include all forms of physical exercise, including those completed just for fun, for their definition of sport, but that begs the question Is sex a sport? However, with almost all professional sport involving competition, and governing bodies requiring competition as a prerequisite of recognition by the IOC or SportAccord, scuba diving really struggles to be classed as a sport.
My personal view is, as you've probably guessed, that I dont regard diving as a sport. Diving for me is a hobby I started in 97. Admittedly its a hobby that has consumed a great part of my life, but it is still just a hobby. I dive with the intent to better myself; sometimes its to better myself at buoyancy, sometimes its to better my air consumption, sometimes to take a better photograph but it is always to better myself with the experience and the sheer enjoyment I receive from flying in a current or exploring a reef or being surrounded by shoals of fish or a brief glimpse of an apex predator but Ive never dived to better anyone else. And that is, for me, the defining point of a sport, official or unofficial, to be better than someone (i.e. direct competition) or to better someones record (i.e. a score, a time, a thrown length etc.). Whether its a team sport, such as football, or an individual sport, such as, I dont know, show jumping a sport has winners and losers, something scuba diving doesn't.
Scuba diving is classed as an extreme sport but so is bungee jumping. An extreme sport is simply an activity that is perceived as having a high level of inherent danger. Just because something is classed as an extreme sport, doesnt make it a sport. I would also hazard a guess that scubas extreme sport classification has more to do with insurance companies and marketing than the sportiness of diving.
So, if simply classing something as a sport doesnt make it a sport, what does?
SportAccord, the de facto representative of international sport, uses the following four criteria to define a sport:
i) It should be in no way harmful to any living creature thats spearfishing straight out the window then.
ii) It should not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier scuba most certainly qualifies as a sport on that point.
iii) It should not rely on any luck element specifically designed in to the sport i.e. a level playing field I dont even know how to apply that to scuba to be honest but, I guess, my guests and I were lucky yesterday when a reef shark happened to swim by, so that must disqualify us as sportspeople.
iv) The fourth criteria is the biggest stumbling block for scuba being a sport as classified by SportAccord It should have an element of competition i.e. an opponent or opponents trying to score more goals than you, or trying to beat your time etc. Diving simply does not have that.
There are opposing views regarding competition as a defining element of a sport As an example, the Council of Europe include all forms of physical exercise, including those completed just for fun, for their definition of sport, but that begs the question Is sex a sport? However, with almost all professional sport involving competition, and governing bodies requiring competition as a prerequisite of recognition by the IOC or SportAccord, scuba diving really struggles to be classed as a sport.
My personal view is, as you've probably guessed, that I dont regard diving as a sport. Diving for me is a hobby I started in 97. Admittedly its a hobby that has consumed a great part of my life, but it is still just a hobby. I dive with the intent to better myself; sometimes its to better myself at buoyancy, sometimes its to better my air consumption, sometimes to take a better photograph but it is always to better myself with the experience and the sheer enjoyment I receive from flying in a current or exploring a reef or being surrounded by shoals of fish or a brief glimpse of an apex predator but Ive never dived to better anyone else. And that is, for me, the defining point of a sport, official or unofficial, to be better than someone (i.e. direct competition) or to better someones record (i.e. a score, a time, a thrown length etc.). Whether its a team sport, such as football, or an individual sport, such as, I dont know, show jumping a sport has winners and losers, something scuba diving doesn't.
