Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktSo yesterday I posted that I am “growing to detest” the Olympics. That is somewhat of a mis-statement. I love the idea of them. I love the competition and I am a sap for the stories that we hear about the atheletes. I am amazed at some of the things I see them do. I guess I am growing increasingly tired of the IOC and the way they are run. And the judging. So, the list of things that I already love about these Olympics is long and probably boring…from Gabby to Phelps and beyond. Truth be told, after the IOC rejected any acknowledgement of the 40th anniversary of the Munich game terrorism, I was ready to boycott them altogether. But that was kind of like holding the atheletes responsible for the sins of the organizers. So I have been watching. All that said, they still piss me off for a number of reasons. And here is my top ten list in no particular order:
1) PC run amok – Banning the Greek triple jumper Voula Papachristou for a “racist” tweet (With so many Africans in Greece … at least the West Nile mosquitos will eat homemade food!!!) and Swiss soccer player Michel Morganella (I want to beat up all South Koreans! Bunch of mentally handicapped retards!). Let me see if I have this correct. The Olympics can be held in Nazi Germany but somehow these tweets merit removing people from the Olympics? I’m glad no other atheletes harbor any prejudical thoughts.
2) Head in Sand – The decision to not have an official moment of rememberance for the Israeli atheletes killed 40 years ago.
3) Gymnatics I – The Tiebreaker. Women compete on each of the 4 apparatus for the all-around best gymnast. They are judged to the thousandth of a point. After the 4 events, two woman are tied, down to the thousandth, for the third best score. Only one gets a bronze medal. Why? The tiebreaker procedure which drops the score of the worst event and then looks at the scores of the remaining 3. Idiotic at best. How is it that an ‘all-around’ competition when the result comes down to only 3 of the 4 apparatus? I think it should be labeled not all-around but “three quarters-around”. But the rules dramatically change year after year so next time,I am sure they will have fixed this issue.
4) Gymnastics II – A limit of 2 per country on the number of gymnasts that can compete in the all-around. So if your country has the 3 best gymnasts in the world, one of you is out of luck. If you are not going to let the best compete, how can the eventual winner be declared the best?
5) Olympic Events I – Team Handball, Synchronized swimming, trampolin and no softball or baseball. Really? Just as an aside, the trampolin was won by a Chinese guy named Dong Dong…oh the places I could go with that name.
6) Olympic Events II – Synchronized swimming. I understand that while the hammer throw is a classic, no kid says I want to grow up to be a hammer thrower. But Synchronized swimming?
7) Fairness (or lack thereof). With time running out in one of the two semifinal matches for the women’s individual epee competition, South Korea’s Shin A Lam led Germany’s Britta Heidermann by a single point. Officially, Heidermann had just one second to launch an attack and score a touch, which would advance her on to the gold medal match to face the Ukraine’s Yana Shemyakina, a lack of time which all but ensured that Shin would advance. Instead, the timing mechanism on the piste became stuck, giving Heidermann extra time to complete her attack and win the bout, which earned her the spot in the gold medal bout. Officials, unsure what to do without a true, official protocol to follow, eventually decided to award the victory to Heidermann. That decision alone is remarkably bad. Ah…but it gets worse. As one might expect, Shin and her coaches were enraged with the decision, and launched an immediate appeal. Yet the appeal itself proved to be incredibly lengthy and also contained a unique bylaw that required Shin to remain on the piste throughout its duration. Unable to leave the playing surface, Shin bawled uncontrollably for the first 10-15 minutes, often shading her head in a towel while occasionally looking out to the crowd before rubbing her eyes again. At long last, after more than 30 minutes of a delay that included the Korean federation having to expedite a payment for the use in the official appeal, Shin’s attempt to overturn the result failed. Naturally. And as a final insult, in order to make themselves feel better, they offered her a “competitor” medal, which she rightly rejected. I don’t speak Korean but it looked like she said you can take that medal and shove it up your something or other.
8) Oscar Pistorius – this will easily be my most controversial one. Pistorius is a South African runner with 2 prosthetic legs that has been allowed to compete in the Olympics. Now as someone who has a brother with muscular dystrophy who we have taken everywhere and helped him do most everything we do, I have to say the decision to allow Pistorius to compete with prosthetic legs is wrong. He comes across like a great and inspirational guy and in many ways I will be pulling for him. But he has artificial feet. Whether they make him faster or not, he is not running on the same playing field as everyone else. He should not be competing on the same one as everybody else either.
9) Bad Bad badminton – Pairs from China, Indonesia and South Korea deliberately tried to lose to secure an easier draw in the subsequent knockout rounds. The embarrassing scenes quickly attracted the attention of officials and media, and led to the expulsion of the eight players involved. One of them, Yu Yang of China, pointed out to the sport’s administrators that she was playing within the rules and said she would quit the sport. I am not sure exactly how I feel about this. Am I more annoyed that teams were trying to lose or that players get kicked out for following the rules? Maybe we should leave the sport to our backyards and not have it in the Olympics…
10) Boxing – It amazes me that Olympics after Olympics, we continue to have what one could legitimately call rigged matches. This time, AIBA, the governing body of amateur boxing, dismissed referee Ishanguly Meretnyyazov of Turkmenistan on Thursday after a bout on Wednesday between Satoshi Shimizu of Japan and Magomed Abdulhamidov of Azerbaijan. Shimizu knocked Abdulhamidov down six times in the third round, but Meretnyyazov didn’t rule any of them a knockdown. Meretnyyazov kept ordering Abdulhamidov to get up, as if Abdulhamidov was going down of his own volition. He was hurt by punches thrown by his opponent, who should have won by stoppage in the third round. But when Meretnyyazov didn’t called them knockdowns, the bout went to the scorecards, where the byzantine computerized scoring system that was put into place to prevent just such atrocities committed yet another one. Abdulhamidov entered the decisive third round with a 10-7 edge. The third round was scored 10-10, so Abdulhamidov won a 20-17 decision he clearly didn’t deserve. The Japanese immediately protested and AIBA overturned the outcome. However, one could have foreseen this because there was a BBC report from September that alleged Azerbaijan was promised two boxing gold medals in exchange for a $10 million loan to the AIBA. AIBA investigated itself instead of having an outside body look into the allegations. Not surprisingly, it found the report was “groundless and unsupported by any credible evidence.” So it’s just coincidence that nine months after it dismissed that report as groundless, an Azerbaijani fighter was on the receiving end of an Olympic referee’s incomprehensible decision. In the Olympic history of boxing, this might not make the top five list of worst offenders
All Things in Moderation 
Great post, Dave! I did not know the worst of this stuff, so thanks for all these details.
We have seen the boxing and gymnastics travesties in the past, of course, but this boxing story really reeks.
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Interesting post, Dave!. . . I agree and disagree with your points. As one who loves the Olympics and what they should be about, and has spent time on the inside (most of February and March 2002 I lived inside the Village for both the Olympics and Paralympics) I’ve had the chance to hear the athletes’ side of the story in a lot of “controversies”. One thing that I don’t think that most people know is that the Olympics often don’t have their own rules–the governing bodies of the sports set the rules. I don’t know when the two-gymnasts-per-country rule was made, but it was made specifically to prevent one nation from sweeping the medals. In that case I most definitely agree with you–stupid rule.
As far as Pistorius goes, I’m going to disagree with you. He fought a long battle in the sport’s courts to get into the Olympics (rather than the Paralympics), and one of the things that had to be proven was that he didn’t get an advantage from his prostheses. I do think that he’s competing on a level playing field there (and track–although not the sprinting events–was one of my events back in the day).
As far as boxing goes, why it’s an Olympic event, let alone one that claims to have any legitimacy at all anymore, is beyond me. When is the last time you heard of a boxing match that wasn’t rigged in some way????
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Dave!
Ditto to most of your points. I don’t know why gymnastics went away from awarding two medals in the case of a tie, but the tiebreakers seem to be working against the US (Nastia Liukin on bars last time and Aly Raisman in the all-around this time).
My biggest beef with Pistorius is that South Africa changed its selection rules to include him. He has only run the A standard once — if he had done it a second time like everyone else had to do, then I’d have no problem with his selection.
Having now watched that boxing match, the decision is well within my top 5 worst Olympic moments in boxing. Even Roy Jones Jr. didn’t destroy that Korean kid like Shimizu did to the Azerbaijani in the 3rd round. And Jones all but shut out Park.
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Am I the only person who thinks that Debbie Phelps will miss her son’s career a lot more than he will when it’s done?
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“In an interview with USA Today, Ike Lochte said that her comments about Ryan’s one-night stands were taken out of context … or that the quote was too brief to let her fully explain why she thinks one-night stands show that her son is actually quite considerate.
“All I wanted to say is that he’s so sensitive about not wanting to hurt a girl dating, so he just goes and dates and takes out a girl for maybe one or two dates and doesn’t have a relationship because he doesn’t have [time] and it’s not fair to the women.
“I thought that was so sensitive, but then they turned it around. I’m not used to this. … What kind of mom is going to say that [about her son having one-night stands]? Especially being a mom and having two daughters.”
He’s practically a virgin, so to speak!
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Cheating cyclists?
http://sports.yahoo.com/video/did-british-cyclists-cheat-win-131013989.html
Is there any other kind?
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Cheating cyclists?
See http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=158094444
I have met Lance and I remember before he won his first TdF he was working out in the Hill Country and had signed a promo deal with a mountain bike mfr. His plan was to finish in the top ten at that first TdF, to lock in his promo deal. Top ten. Swear to God. So I never believed he doped.
I went outside to help my granddaughters plant the beans they have cultivated inside in a pot, from seeds. In the process of digging, planting, mulching, pole tying, and watering I missed the conclusion of Serena-Sharapova. American-competing-for-America had won her first 9 games against American-competing-for-Russia when I went outside. I think that is correct – that Sharapova is now an American citizen. If so, I guess you can have dual American-Russian citizenship.
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I think most countries respect dual citizenship but us (and Bachmann who is probably forming her own country even as we speak)
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Saw Pistorius run today.
I understand your point. but I guess I no longer take sports as seriously as I once did.
Bottom line for me is that everybody else walks away on two legs and gets on with their lives. I don’t know of any of the other runner who would be willing to trade places with him.
btw,my guess is that we have only scratched the surface in this area, compared to what our children will see.
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I saw Pistorius today and was impressed.
I did look up Sharapova on the google machine and apparently she is actually a Rooskie. Only.
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mark:
If I had to choose between the obvious, is Lance the only successful non doper cyclist of the last twenty years or does he exploit his value to cycling and have better attorneys than the other guys, I would choose the latter
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Dave,
Excellent post. I agree on pretty much every count. I too was a bit torn on the badminton scandal at first, but have decided that the real problem is that the competition is structured such that losing can ultimately be beneficial, and the point of the competition is to win a medal, not win individual matches. So really the competitors have been punished for having a long term strategy. The organizers need to restructure the event so that losing individual matches necessarily makes it more difficult to win a medal.
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Badminton players were punished for not breaking a rule. Imagine if a swimmer stroked just hard enough to make the next round. What a scandal. NOT.
Scott has nailed it. Skew the event so that losing is its own penalty and winning is its own reward.
For those who expected to see exciting badminton, I would only say wtf?
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A lot of this gets down to my theory about sports. In order for something to be a legitimate sport it must involve physical strength or dexterity and must have an objective method of determining the winner. This can be whoever is fastest, or whatever goes the farthest of how many times an object passes some imaginary border. Anything where judges award points is a talent competition, not a sport. You can be voted the most talented gymnast but there is no way to objectively declare someone the best flag twirler on a rubber mat while wearing a sequined unitard in the world.
As a handy guide, I present these examples:
Swimming, Sport; Diving, Not A Sport
Beach Volleyball; Sport; Gymnastics, Not A Sport
Speed Skating, Sport; Figure Skating, Not A Sport
Dwarf-Tossing, Sport; Pole Dancing, Not A Sport
Boxing when decided by anything other than a TKO is contest, not a sport. Wrestling with points awarded by pins is much more objective and seemingly harder to rig.
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And then there are games – like poker and chess and badminton and the lawn game with the mallet and balls and putt-putt and billiards.
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I did not think Serena was that much better than Sharapova, over the last five years. That was some dominant exhibition Serena put on.
Marquise Goodwin, returning ‘Horn wide receiver and NCAA and Trials champion in the long jump, just plain fell apart in the finals. I felt bad for him as he sat crying on the grass. His future is in the jump, not in the NFL, so I think he will be back. His Trials jump would have won gold and his qualifying jump the day before would have won bronze.
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Skew the event so that losing is its own penalty and winning is its own reward.Skew the event so that losing is its own penalty and winning is its own reward.
World Cup soccer and similar tournaments often have lots of situations where game strategy (in the mathematical sense) enters into scoring decisions. In a lot of cases, a tie is more beneficial to both teams than a win or loss would be. As they say in the bars, don’t hate the playa, hate the game.
At the pro level, the NBA had to institute a lottery for draft picks to try to keep the teams from playing to lose near the end of the season once they had been mathematically eliminated.
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The physical activity component then becomes the litmus test. For chess and poker there is no real strength or dexterity needed. Croquet in my mind counts as a sport. There is a lot of skill required in whacking balls through hoops. In Annapolis there is an annual croquet tournament between the Naval Academy and neighboring St. Johns College, a particularly liberal liberal arts college. The midshipmen take it very seriously. I would like to see marbles or tiddlywinks as an Olympic event.
My nephew last night says that his cross-country coach says “Anything with a ball isn’t a sport, it’s just a game.” He likes that saying because he also swims and all his brothers play football or baseball. I’m not sure I agree but I see his point.
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I love the Summer Olympics and think it’s a great opportunity to get kids enthused about sports and competition. I sort of agree with yello that not all of the sports in the Olympics can really be considered a sport, in that the scoring is so subjective and leaves the door open to too much controversy.
Around here we’re definitely partial to swimming more than anything else and the thing I hate most about the Olympics is that they’re on so late into the evening that I’m walking around with bags under my eyes from lack of sleep.
Our youngest was the best athlete in the family (Jr Olympian and state champ swimmer) and she recently said something that really struck a chord as a parent. She said the most important two things she learned from participating in a really competitive sport were discipline and dealing with disappointment.
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lms:
Yes I think that too but as a corollary I have wondered why so few Olympians have parlayed that into success into other fields in life.
Perhaps the money they can make now in their sport leaves them with no need to do anything else into their thirties, too late to make a mark?
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John, I think it’s more the effort that goes into it and less the medal that’s important. We’re a big sports community here and as far as I know none of our kids has made it to the Olympics and yet many have parlayed their athletic abilities and training into success in other realms.
I sometimes question if having participation in the Olympics as a singular goal neglects other aspects of life. Our daughter had to quit competitive swimming at 16 and went on to focus on academics. She credits her academic success to her athletic focus early on.
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Yes for all the obsessiveness of women’s gymnastics for instance, I am unaware of a single one who has made a mark outside of that area.
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Looks as if only five American women had ever won an individual medal in gymnastics until this year. Not the kind of sample one can rely upon.
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As a teen, I babysat a neighborhood friend who wound up winning a swimming medal in Atlanta (as part of a relay gold world record swim). He obviously has since moved on. He spent some of his time as a coach and working for the Olympic training program. Then he moved into the financial field. For a while he was married to Summer Sanders but they split. I saw him not too long ago and he is remarried with two kids and enjoying what he is doing. He was always a real good person and I think that he has maintained that. When we were growing up, I knew that he swam a lot, generally really early AM, but I don’t recall his sole focus as being swimming. We played a lot of front yard football and baseball, and other non-swimming kids things. He was a pretty sharp kid academically. But he never came across as one of those kids who give up everything to get to the Olympics.
So my question is what kind of mark are we looking for them to make? Is being happy, family-oriented and productive/successful it or do we expect them to be something else?
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Mark – “That was some dominant exhibition Serena put on.”
Ditto Andy Murray…
I too tend to think that anything with judging is not a sport…but I sure like watching some of them.
I find myself needing an extra cup of coffee or so during the Olympics also.
I think it’s a tossup as to who will miss it more – Michael or Ms. Phelps.
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my question is what kind of mark are we looking for them to make?
Good question. Are we expecting our Olympians to be Johan Olav Koss (4 golds, CEO of Right to Play) or is being Eric Heiden (5 golds, professional cyclist then orthopedic surgeon and team physician for the US speedskating team for the last few Olympics) OK? How about Joey Cheek (1 gold, president of Team Darfur)? Or, if you want to talk gymnastics, Amy Chow (one of the 1996 US team members) graduated from Stanford med school and is a pediatrician. Is that good enough?
I think that the qualities that make Olympic athletes excel don’t necessarily translate to “making a mark” afterwards. And expecting them to excel in another arena is not realistic.
Oh, I’m reminded that, though he never won an Olympic medal, Sir Roger Bannister became a renowned neurologist after his sports career.
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Bannister…he was the first guy to do a successful brain surgery in under 4 minutes, right?
I think most Olympic atheletes tend to become successful in whatever it is they decide to do…chiefly because hard work, drive and competition generally yield success no matter what it is you are doing. Is becoming a pediatrician a failure or settling or an example of not excelling? I have a hard time thinking that.
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