The London Olympics have come and gone and once again – as is the case every four years-  we’ve watched sports, that were they to be televised any other time of the year, we’d be changing the channel faster than Usain Bolt in the 100 metre dash.

I am talking about sports we only care about if an Australian is a medal contender, but if someone asked you the rules or who the current world champion is, you would not have a clue.

These are sports which only garner headlines in the back pages of newspapers at Olympic time and disappear without a trace soon after.

These are sports that are so marginal, that if we really must include them, we should also include made-for-television nonsense like ‘Wipeout’ and ‘Gladiators’. At least they’d be entertaining!

These are sports that should come with a warning – “It’s worse than watching lawn bowls”

So here’s my list of 7 Olympic sports I’d pull before we have to endure them again in Rio in 2016.

Sailing

Any sport that requires you to use a pair of binoculars should immediately get the boot. Honestly, who really wants too watch a bunch of boats bobbing about in the middle ocean chasing each other around buoys with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Rubbish! I think this hilarious Irish commentary sums up my feelings about the sport.

Badmington

There’s a reason they don’t play squash at the Olympics. Its boring! So why do we have to watch Badmington. Does anybody enjoy watching people on opposite sides of a tall net, doing their best impression of swatting at a fly? It’s such a terrible spectator sport that people actually lost on purpose at these Olympics (that’s right four teams were disqualified for not trying hard enough)

Synchronised swimming

I ask you? Do we have ballet on ice at the Olympics? Is there a gold medal for the cha-cha? No! And you know why – because that would be stupid. So is this ridiculous “sport”. And it’s discriminatory – the only Olympic sport (aside from rhythmic gymnastics – see below) for women only.

Rhythmic gymnastics

See comments for synchronised swimming. We could at least laugh if men were also twirling ribbons and playing with balls.

Diving

Can anyone with their naked eyes judge – apart from a belly flop – that the dive of a gold medallist is better than that of the silver medallist? It’s impossible. I cannot for the life of me tell a good dive from a bad one.

Shooting

Should we be glorifying guns at a sporting event that’s all about people from all around the world coming together to compete on the world stage in a spirit of comraderie and good will. The Olympic spirit etc. Plus its boring. No one watches this event except to see who won gold.

Trampoline

Seriously? Why not include the merry-go-round, jungle gym and swings? Dreadful!

So let’s ditch these sports and include these far worthier alternatives…

Rugby Sevens

Now a truly world game that would draw huge crowds and show the world the nimble-footed Fijians, Samoans and the best of the All Blacks, Wallabies, Springboks, English, Irish, Welsh and French. Even the Americans and Canadians and a team from China could compete.

T20 Cricket

What better way to launch cricket on the global stage. T20 is a version of the game that is guaranteed to yield a few upsets and it’s fast paced, there’s lots of action and there’s always the possibility that a team like Ireland or the Netherlands could cause a huge upset.

International rules (AFL and Gaelic football-hybrid)

A sport where Australia – like the USA in basketball – is virtually guaranteed a gold medal, or at least a dog-fight with the Irish. What a great way to spread one of the world’s least understood but most fiercely competitive game.