Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter
Those words – in Latin – don’t really get around much in common conversation these days. But for two weeks every two years they tend to take a bit more prominence.
They might resonate a little more in English these days.
Faster, higher, stronger – together.
Those four words form the motto of the modern Olympic Games.
The first three words of the Olympic motto, as laid out by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, were adopted a century ago. The current slogan was completed in 2022 with “communiter – or together.
The ideal is that Olympic sports reward excellence along these axes. But not every Olympic sport meets all these ideals to the same degree. In some sports, athletes go higher or faster, in some they show more strength, and in some sports they are more numerous.
So which sports stand out as checking all the boxes? HPN has done its best to identify the highest, fastest, strongest and togethermost sports at the Paris Olympics, and humbly present our findings below.
Faster
Defining the fastest sport is fairly straightforward. HPN is after the maximum speed attained by an athlete, whether it’s walking, prolonged sprinting, falling to earth, or a quick lunge. Excluded are the speed of projectiles such as arrows, bullets or balls.
In the absence of street luge or skydiving, the fastest event on the summer Olympic circuit seems to be cycling, where road racers can get up to 100 kph in the downhill stretches.
Also keep an eye out for the kiteboarding addition to the sailing this Olympics, as the tiny kitesurfing craft can get up into the 40 knots (74kph) range.
Beyond those two, the fastest speeds are achieved with the gravity assisted descents of the high dive, gymnastics trampoline and pole vault events.
At the other end of the scale are sports like archery or golf where a leisurely stroll is the maximum pace needed, and those like wrestling and judo where opponents slowly edge around each other seeking opportunities.
Higher
How far above the surface of the event do athletes reach during their events?
HPN is searching for maximum elevation of the athlete’s head, be it through a jump, a climb or similar. Again excluded are projectiles, and we’re not looking at a comparison to sea level but rather the immediate surface of land or water around them.
In sport climbing, aquatics (diving), gymnastics and athletics there are significant heights attained in competition, none greater than the 15m walls in relative newcomer sport climbing. If “higher” is a key ideal, climbing is a welcome and overdue addition.
In many cases a sport’s height is largely about the tallest competitors as they remain grounded (boxers get taller than triathletes), or with human jumping power, as shown in fencing:
The least high sports are rowing and canoeing, competed in while sitting or kneeling.
Stronger
Stronger can be measured several ways, but short of physics calculations abou force application on a single point, which are beyond the means of your humble HPN authors, the chosen measure is the weight of objects lifted, pushed or carried during the event.
Some events require only the athlete to be out there, many others involve object interactions.
Weightlifting, recently threatened with absence from the games, stands out as obviously the strongest event. If “stronger” is the motto there seems to be an inarguable case for retention here.
Beyond that, events involving the lifting of entire athletes feature strongly. Judo comes in second, with the heaviest judoka at the Olympics, Guam’s Ricardo Blas Jr in 2012, clocking in at 218 kg:
American wrestling’s Chris Taylor who competed in the 1960s was also 118kg. After that, the tackling of rugby sevens athletes and lifting of synchronised swimmers also figures prominently in this field.
In most other sports, the lifting of swords, guns, balls, paddles, oars, sticks and the like variously make up the rankings down to the likes of equestrian and breaking where no equipment is required.
Together
This a very simple measure. Competing in a team promotes togetherness. Which event teams are the largest?
Football’s squads sit first, and then from there down the ranks sit the hockey, handball, rugby sevens, basketball and the other team events.
What it all means
By combining these measures, and ranking each discipline by each part of the motto, HPN has come up with the most Olympic of Olympic events.
It turns out the diverse sport of aquatics is the most Olympian sport. The administrative merger of several somewhat distinct disciplines into the single sport of aquatics has given us second highest and third fastest via diving, the fifth largest weights being lifted via artistic swimming, and teams of 13 featured in the Water Polo.
It all makes aquatics a real allrounder when it comes to fulfilling the Olympic motto, and perhaps shows that mergers may be the path for other less Olympic individual sports.
It also makes sense why aquatics has the most events in the Olympic Games – it is the most Olympic thing after all/
Also quite highly Olympic are athletics and rugby sevens in equal second. Athletics features the elevation and speedy descent of the pole vault, the heaviest thrown equipment in the shotput, and teams of four in the relays.
Rugby sevens is new to the Games but as the equal second most Olympic sport, perhaps should have been there long ago. With the heights of lineouts, the speed of flat-out sprinting, large squad sizes and heavy weights being engaged with, many key components of that motto are engaged.
Among the least Olympic sports are Table Tennis and Taekwondo, which while entertaining and highly skilled, only feature grounded players, short lunging movement, small teams, and no significant weights.
Alternative medal tally
Having established the pecking order of the most Olympic of Olympic sports, we now take the next step and weight the Paris medal tally according to this. The methodology is to multiply each medal by the inverse of its ranking in Olympicness. For instance aquatics at 1 is multiplied by 32, Athletics and rugby sevens each by 31, and so forth down to Table Tennis with no multiplier.
Aquatics turning out to be the very paragon of the Olympic model’s intent is great news for Australia’s aspirations for medal tally glory, with all those swimming medals weighted very high, placing them second behind the United States over all so far in these Olympic games.
As with the conventional tally, athletics figures to weigh heavily on the leaderboard in week 2 of the Games.