Cheerleading - Sport? Not JUST!

Well yes ... cheerleading *is* a recognised sport. Not very surprising considering that the International Olympic Committee identifies static apnoea (holding breath underwater) as a sport! Or is it?

What really surprised me, though, was the fact that recently cheerleading was officially identified as a 'contact sport'! Now, when there are several sections that argue over football being a contact sport or not, this 'official' declaration by the US law about cheerleading seems to have shook my wisdom about the categorization of sport. But read this piece - it makes perfect sense to tag cheerleading as a contact sport.

Who cares, by the way, if a sport is a contact sport or not! Afterall, it seems like just a matter of 'tagging' ... with no other practical significance. 

Wrong. 

Bridge, for instance, is not a contact sport. This literally means that a bridge player would be liable for normal criminal proceedings if during the course of a game he or she ends up physically hurting a fellow player - intentionally or not. Ofcourse, it's upto the victim player to file a case ... like happens in a typical civic setting.

If football was tagged as 'not being a contact sport', every bad foul (or probably every foul) could have resulted into criminal proceedings by the police. Footballers wouldn't have been allowed to go beyond a nudge or two in a football game (and Gattuso would have been serving in the jail while Ronaldo would be scoring goals at will)!

What would happen if football was officially pronounced as a contact sport? Would that give the players the legal right to go about tackling and breaking bones?

I don't have an idea! I am too busy being confused with what makes an activity (like darts, or fishing, ... or static apnoea) a sport ... leave alone the concept of contact sport!

The opposite of truth is false, but the opposite of a profound truth may be yet another profound truth.