Why Is Bodybuilding Not an Olympic Sport Yet?

Bodybuilding has been a sport for a long time but in order to be recognized as a proper sport, it had to go through a lot of turmoil. It is mainly a one-man sport, where the individual has to train and lift weights, as well as have proper nutrition, in order to gain the perfect flawless and muscular body that is then showcased on stage, and a winner is declared, according to the best conditioning. Even if bodybuilding has become a proper sport after the golden era, and continues to be a proper recognized entity in the modern era, it is still not included in the Olympics.

Bodybuilding was very close to getting recognized as an Olympic sport in the 1970s thanks to the extreme efforts of Ben Weider however, this idea never materialized because of several reasons. What are the reasons that bodybuilding is not an Olympic sport? Well, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Olympic Planning Committee (OPC) give the following three different reasons why they do not recognize Bodybuilding as an Olympic sport.

Bodybuilding includes the steroids

The IOC does not recognize bodybuilding as an Olympic sport, because firstly, this athletic endeavor needs steroids, which are strictly prohibited in the Olympics.

The main criteria of the Olympics is to have a drug-free and fair competition among all athletes across discpliplines. 

Read More: How Did This Late Yugoslavian Bodybuilder Get the Nickname “The Professor”? Learn More About His Bodybuilding Career and His Best Olympia Year

There also has been a history in the Olympics that whenever an athlete has taken any performance enhancers or other kinds of drugs, they have been drug tested, and disqualified from the Competition. Bodybuilders use performance-enhancing drugs to enhance their masses and hence according to the IOC bodybuilding cannot be a part of the Olympics.

Bodybuilding is not considered to be a sport

Even though bodybuilding has a long history it is not considered to be a sport due to various reasons. The main reason behind it is that it is a very subjective form of athleticism. Moreover, bodybuilding needs a lot of hard work and muscle-building is not a piece of cake. Gaining muscles like a Greek God needs extreme sacrifices and determination, as well as discipline, and the sport also does not have any lucrative benefits financially.

Jay Cutler had once reluctantly admitted that he does not consider bodybuilding as a sport. In one of his personal podcast videos, he was talking about his admiration and love for sports in general, when the topic went to bodybuilding, and whether it is a sport or not.

The four-time Mr.Olympia hated to admit it, but he did speak his heart, “It is a pageant and I hate to say that. Because, when you talk about pageants, you think of women, right? But, I think, it’s, I don’t know, what.” However, the full-time Mr. Olympia winner try to substantiate bodybuilding by saying that it needs a lot of blood, sweat, and hard work to make muscles, and there are several bodybuilders who can gain amazing physique without steroids. Even if bodybuilding became an Olympic sport, the judgment would be very subjective, because the sport itself is subjective.

Bodybuilding is a subjective sport

Another argument forwarded by the IOC is that bodybuilding needs a subjective form of judgment. However, there are a lot of sports in the Olympics that need subjective judgment, such as performance gymnastics, ice dancing, figure skating, and diving.

So judges can be brought for bodybuilding, who know the exact criteria of scoring just like the instructions in IFBB. 

Watch This Story: Bodybuilding legend Lou Ferrigno’s three secrets to stay in top shape

However, the IOC does not consider the rules of IFBB and the IFBB pro contests have a lot of criteria and different categories have different requirements to win the contest. Nonetheless, bodybuilding is a difficult endeavor and several athletes are proving their mettle everyday in this field. Let’s hope in the future this sport can be considered in the realm of the Olympics.