Beijing Olympics - The Dark Side

Excellent post Bluernote and perfectly valid reason to make it a seperate post imo.
I haven’t heard much about “competitive walking” in the olympics. That’s just absurd! Like you mentioned, why not just run? This is why we have dozens of running/track & field events. I guess I’ve never heard much about it in the past as it’s not a very popular event and doesn’t get much air-time like the more exciting sports. And they want to do away with softball?! I say do away with walking and keep softball. The US womens softball team are and fighting hard to keep their sport in the olympics and I really hope they suceed.

Another “dark side” of the olympics (imo) is the issue with the Chinese womens gymnastics regarding some of their players not being 16 years of age. Everyone I’ve spoken to who’s watched these girls compete will tell you they barely look 12. I heard on the news this morning that the IOC will be investigating these allegations, however the MSN Olympic website states otherwise. http://www.nbcolympics.com/blogs/blog=alanabrahamsonsblog/postid=246524.html#sweet+really
Even if they do investigate it will take years before we see any results from it. (according to the Today show) For whatever that’s worth.
I also believe the judging was bias towards the US team in gymnastics, both in the mens and womens competitions. Some of the other countries got much higher scores than the US athletes did, yet they made more errors during their routines. But of course this is debatable and there’s nothing that can be done about it now. But even Bela Karolyi has made comments about both this issue and the age issue and as most of you know, if anybody knows gymnastics, it’s Bela Karolyi.
Regardless, our team still brought home some medals and they did it with their heads held high and with great sportsmanship.

Hi, Bluernote…
For sure, competitive walking looks awkward and silly. But it’s like pacing horse racing- the objective is not to run. But teams from all over the world can compete in the sport. I remember a big flurry of interest here, like you do, but it faded away. It didn’t elsewhere, though.

The Olympic Committee adds and takes away sports all the time. One main consideration in their sports selection is that the Olympic sports are played all over the world, and have participants from all over the world.

Softball is like Cricket. It’s very popular in a few countries, but is not played very much world-wide. Part of the objections to Baseball, Softball and Cricket is the length of the game, and the number of participants needed to compete. The Olympics has always favored games played with individual participants or small teams, as these allow poor countries a place at the games.

Another Olympic objective is to provide definite Championships for a sport. Soccer is the most widely played game in the world, but it has a World Championship of its own, so it’s not in the Olympics.

On the other hand, Basketball is relatively new, and BMX racing is even newer. Both these games can be played anywhere, and in the case of BMX, the Committee is trying to develop a sport.

For sure, politics plays a part. Even though the Committee denies it, we have all seen politics, and national predjudice enter into judge’s decisions, under age athletes, etc. It wasn’t that long ago when it was discovered that the entire E. German delegation was found to be doped to the gills.

The Chinese certainly have severak agendas; they want to be seen as an Olympic powerhouse to the rest of the world, and they’re using the Olympics as a way to build national unity and pride.

There is nothing new in this… it’s been going on since I first started watching the games, and I’m sure for many games before.

But these games have been real exciting this year! I thought the Women’s Beach Volleyball finals, played in a hard rain, was just about as good as it gets. Misty May Treanor and Kerry Walsh are some of the finest athletes I’ve ever seen! And all those close finishes- whooo!

Great responses and nice re-cap boomer…As 007 mentioned check the facts on soccer not being in the Olympics though.

I remember that Carry Grant movie - I have a short video of him ranting or carrying on a conversation while he’s walking like that.

To me table tennis is more fun to watch than someone walking like they are constipated. And when you play a few intense games of table tennis (let alone the Olympic level), you might be surprised at the level of conditioning they must have in order to keep up the intensity of play. I don’t think either one can be said to be more athletic than the other.

I am well aware that liking table tennis puts me in a minority though.

….okay, just my two cents but I thought the men’s badminton was like a Ben Stiller movie. . . lots of big, tough athletes, going to the clay on their serve of a . . . .

birdie?

shuttlecock?

maybe they could just come up with a different name for what they are swatting?

and what’s up with the odd “showering segments” in between the synchronized platform diving? I know there is a legitimate reason that I just don’t know. . . but it still creeped me out a bit.

just IMO. Great, great post Bluernote and all who have commented here

Thanks CR67. . . I had no idea what was going on with that. . .

Good point Bluernote!

Apologies for being wrong about soccer!
I don’t keep up with that one; I think I may have heard speculation that it may be removed from the games and got things screwed up.

To me, the goofiest sport is synchronized swimming. Seen one, seen em all, and none can beat the Rockettes on a bad night.

On the other hand, Michael Phelps and the boys were the best thing on TV in months for me. Jason Cerznik (sp?) blew me away- on both occaisions when he needed to step up and deliver the goods, he did it for the team, more than he pushed himself. It was great to watch them work as a team, not a bunch of individual prima donnas. Phelps is simply a marvelous athlete.

Usain Bolt ain’t bad either- I wonder how fast he can really go if he gets serious about breaking records. He didn’t even get winded in the 100 meter dash. I liked his attitude- like a good race horse, he gave it just enough to win, and started celebrating right away.

Anonymous, that’s a very good point you bring up. Since this system is far from “mature” at this point, it’s unclear what people are actually voting on when they vote. For instance, 3 of the things people could be voting on (there may be more) are:

1. Whether they “agree” with the point of the comment or not
2. Was the comment “helpful” or not. (did the comment add value whether they agree or not?)
3. Whether they “like” the person or not. (e.g. attacking the person, not the idea).

You may be implying that A. the votes were made by the same person; and B. The person was voting based on reason #3 above.

If that’s what you are implying, in this specific case I also think you are probably right. I just want to encourage people to keep in mind that because of how incomplete the system is at this point, that we are making fairly large assumptions when we speculate about such things.

That said, even though the rating system is far from complete and mature, it does give us one additional piece of information to make our own judgment with.