A couple of lovely people I know have suggested that some of the Olympic disciplines are not “proper sports”. This sentiment is one frequently echoed by compatriots of losers, stand-up comedians and miserable bastards the World over.

It has now seeped into the social consciousness and zeitgeist to the extent that many people mistakenly think “sports” are one thing - typified by physical endurance, stamina, or skill - and “games” are things anybody can do really, probably whilst having a pint at the same time.

Let’s put to one side that “the Olympics” are actually called “the Olympic Games” (or in French, “Jeux olympiques”), and just assume the “point” of the Olympics is to promote “sporting disciplines”.

Why do I feel certain that every single one of the Olympic disciplines is worthy of the name “sport”?

Even archery, which I reckon I could have a good bash at it with the right kit despite being a perfect example of how bad Guinness can be for your waistline, or boxing which is standing around and punching people when they didn’t even borrow that DVD off you in the first place.

Yes, I’d even include dressage where the horse is the one actually doing the moving about, whilst the “competitor” sits atop in a fine hat looking more English than a teapot in a red phone box (even when the competitor is French, which must be embarrassing for them).

All of these can be - and in the context of the Olympics, most definitely are - sports.

To explain, let’s just focus on what makes something nothing more than “a game”.

Any activity can be made into a game. All you need is a way to keep score and some rules to make sure the scores actually mean something. Staring at a wall: how long for without looking away? Making a cup of tea: judges could taste-test quality, or there could be speed trials. Having a nice sit down and a biscuit: how few crumbs can be counted on your lap afterwards?

Most games are obviously a bit more involved and preferably prefer people either getting naked or putting things onto a spring-loaded donkey (or both!), but the point is I could make a game out of writing this very post if I wanted. Or even this sentence. (4 words, 0.6 seconds, 100 words/minute, if you’re interested).

“Gamification” is a major social force in the web application industry right now, to the point where sitting in your office and pressing a button in an app on your phone can make you “Mayor”, which is why I don’t use FourSquare: I might become an annoying prat who asks for a third of a Londoner’s council tax to spend on bicycles and zip lines or whatever.

Games are obviously more fun when there is a degree of competition, and therefore the scores must be fairly comparable. You and I might decide to play pooh-sticks for example, and we will have a grand old time as I crush you and claim glorious victory and then we’ll go and get an ice cream or something. The fun is in me beating you without “cheating”. Or you usurping me and claiming a surprise victory, perhaps (like that’s ever going to happen, you fool), all whilst not kicking me in the head as I sing “We are the Champions”, etc.

This is a game: any activity at which there are some established rules allowing the participants to keep score, and where the point of the rules is to make different participants scores comparable with each other.

Cheating isn’t just “naughty” - it stops it becoming a game, because the scores are no longer comparable. If I turned up to pooh-sticks with laser-guided remote-controlled precision sticks with outboard motors on them, I can’t claim a fair victory when you’ve just picked up that stick with a leaf on it next to that weird moss on that rock, no not that one, that one over there, no, there you moron… yes, the bent one! 

Providing the game is fair then, I would argue that any game can become a sport. How? Other people caring about the outcome.

If whilst I am thrashing you at pooh-sticks, a small crowd appears and starts cheering one or the other of us on (hint: I’m very charismatic, they’ll be cheering for me mostly), then we have a sport. The number of people who care about the outcome or who want to have a go themselves determines how “sporting” it is. Once we start keeping World Records, or we meet regularly to do contest on a schedule we share with non-participants, and arrange ourselves into leagues, and perhaps start making money from the gullible fools who fawn in my pooh-stick abilities, then we have a moderately successful sport.

Sport is, I think, simply any game, where non-participants care about or are interested in the scores and who wins.

If the dressage, archery or boxing events at the Olympics, it’s pretty clear there were non-participants who cared about the outcome. In some cases, they really cared to the point where they flocked to Twitter, barely able to type through their blubbering tears about how wonderful and marvellous it is that somebody they’ve never met who happens to be considered by International Law to be a citizen of the same part of the World as them despite living 3,000 miles away, beat somebody who lives 300 miles away who they do not share such a close bond with due to them suffering the genetic disadvantage of being French.

So, here’s my cut-out-and-keep guide:

1. In both games and sports, people keep score somehow
2. In both games and sports, rules ensure the scores of different participants are fairly comparable
3. In games only the participants care about the comparison, in sports there are non-participants who also care

If this still doesn’t make sense to you, think about what sports would become if nobody cared? Or even if the outcome wasn’t scored or measured? What exactly would those footballers be doing if nobody nobody cared about the score? What would the by doing if they didn’t bother keeping score? Just what is it that Usain Bolt would be proving by running really quickly if nobody was watching? Or some people were watching, but were not measuring how fast he was running?

So the next time you hear somebody say “that’s not a real sport”, despite there being a clear loyal following of non-participants, maybe point out that it might be an activity whose outcome they don’t care about, so that can mean it’s not a sport to them.

But to the participants and to their followers, and to the people around them, it is very much a sport. And what they’re saying is a smidge hurtful to all of them, even if it’s just pooh-sticks. So, you know, try not to say that. It makes you sound a little bit mean.

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