It's time to declutter the Olympics.

A letter in today’s Irish Times makes a plea for Beach Volleyball to be taken more seriously as an Olympic sport. (roll eyes)

I freely confess that I include it with “sports” such as Synchorised Swimming, Synchronised Diving, Gymnastic Streamer Twirling etc in the long list of sports which, I feel, have reduced the Olympics to little more than a 5-ring circus.

Would you believe that gold medals were awarded in 302 events at the Beijing Olympics? How many of these events could be dropped without most people noticing?

A new process is urgently required to trim this growing circus to more manageable proportions and determine which sports should be allowed. Thankfully, the selection criteria are already described in the Olympic motto: "Citius, Altius, Fortius" (faster, higher, stronger). Any sport where victory does not depend on one or more of these three attributes should be automatically ineligible for inclusion in the Olympics.

This would reduce the number of events to something far more manageable and, most importantly, more credible as real sports.