Olympic petition

[Stringbean]

Disc golf may not be an Olympic sport and there have been many threads in many places discussing that possibility. Waiting for that here is one confirmed Olympic athlete that plays disc golf.

Carrying the Finnish flag at 2014 winter Olympic games at Sochi is Ms Enni Rukajärvi. She opened Ruka disc golf courses first competition by throwing a disc and hole number four is dedicated for her with a name plague. She plays disc golf otherwise as well.

Ben Askren competed as a wrestler in the 2008 olympics. He is an MMA figher now. Not sure if he still plays disc golf but he got 2nd place in the 2011 United States Amateur Disc Golf Championship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Askren

 

[JR]

That is great it is good to have successful athletes from other sports discing too. The more the better.

 

[money 21]

would love to see disc golf in the games. its popularity seems to be spreading through europe (Fromw North to south). with it growing into china and Japan it could get there some day.

 

[Natten]

I think the community needs to focus on creating easier to follow league before looking towards the Olympics. Golf has just been accepted into the 2016 Olympics, and theyre obviously far more organized and popular than anything youll see in Disc.

 

[JR]

I don't know about popularity it could reverse in time. Some golf couses have been shut down due to financial troubles and golf courses installed on them instead. I looked up the latest annual report of Finnish golf association from 2012 and they had 144000+ registered members. Nobody knows the amount of players of disc golf in Finland but i have heard of estimates between 30000 and 50000 who knows. Finnish Frisbeegolf association has IIRC around 1400 licensed players of whom dunno maybe about 700-800 tops are PDGA members. There are 5.3 million Finns so it is fair to say that Finns like to golf either way. I have no idea about the percentages of people playing both sports. Guess which sport grows faster? Golf had a growth spurt here earlier disc golf has grown in double digit percentages for what 8-9 years in a row? I would imagine that golf as an Olympic event in 2016 can only be good for disc golf too so go golf!!!

 

[Tendai09]

Nice post