Fear not. There's an obvious explanation. "Winter sports" are not actually sports. It's perfectly reasonable to have no interest in what's going on now and still expect to be excited by the prospect of seeing the World's Fastest Human run the 100 meter race.
I think it's more than age. My brothers (who are 17 and 14) and their friends don't care, either. They've never felt as excited about an Olympics as I remember when I was a kid.
It's just the Winter Olympics that bore me. They're not bad to watch, but there's something less immediate about the sports — they require too much gear. When I watch the Summer Olympics I get the sense that the athletes are competing against the entire history of their sport — that we're really watching the strongest, fastest, physically best men and women of all time. With the Winter Olympics you really can't say that. The technology matters way too much.
1) The Winter games are less watchable than the Summer games.
2) The network sob stories get old very quickly.
3) During the second half of the last Summer games, I was travelling in Canada. The difference in the attitude toward the games on TV was remarkable. The ads in the U.S. were all about American athletes defeating rivals in challenges for GOLD GOLD GOLD! The Canadian ads? Peace, love, friendship, international cooperation.
8: I disagree. It's not that the sports require too much equipment, it's just that there's not as many races that are head-to-head competition. Short-track, certainly. Cross-country skiing - but that's like watching the marathon.
Most of the rest seem to be against the clock, and that's just not as much fun to watch unless you're already a fan of the sport. I don't know enough about skiing to tell if something's a good run unless they run the little clock in the corner. In swimming, I can see that someone's ahead and someone's catching up oh no!
About what Cala said – I went to Dublin right before it hosted the Special Olympics and it was the coolest vibe ever. Each of the little towns surrounding the city sponsored athletes from a different country and decked out their main thoroughfares with banners and signs greeting the athletes in that country's language and all of the townspeople were bubbling with excitement. I really don't think they could have been more excited if they were hosting the actual Olympics.
Tom and Cala's comments make sense to me. I never much cared about the Winter Olympics until I started participating in a lot of the sports. I still don't much care about the other sports (like skating and hockey).
It is hard to separate any possibility of enjoyment from what's happened to the coverage. Aside from the activities of bona fide international stars, and there are never more than a couple of those and sometimes fewer, network coverage is entirely of Americans expected to win.
I remember, during the Summer Olympics before the last one, my wife called me that they were going to show the final of the cycling pursuit. This was because Marty Nothstein, the American, was expected to win. I found myself rooting for his opponent, the German Jens Fiedler. When Fiedler won, because he used better tactics, I felt a bit bad about my reflexive reaction. Marty Nothstein's not a bad guy, I bore him no ill will, I just wanted to spite the coverage, and its expectations.
I think if you're Irish or German or French, the wins are more rare, and the feeling of triumph is greater--no matter the sport. The whole nation suddenly becomes interested in rowing or archery or whatever. Presumably this will change if they ever really start to see themselves as Europeans, and complete as a bloc.
The decline of interest for me is the proliferation of sports involved. And the fact that running, for example, looks to be at or near its limit, in the sense that the times are so close. Plus, the whole aura of being an athlete seems sort of tainted by drugs. It has lost its purity as a pursuit.
First off, I think the Winter vs. Summer thing is overstated - a lot of the Winter stuff is just fine, even if it lacks the millenia-spanning quality of footraces and chariots.
Anyway, I was also going to say that I don't think it's the disappearance of the Soviets per se. I mean, the sense that the Olympics were the Ultimate Showdown was valuable, but I think that, more importantly, it made rooting for the US feel less overdoggish. I mean, especially in the Winters, we had to fight for every medal we could get. Now it just feels like we get as many medals as we want. So rooting for the home team feels lame. But, really, on what basis am I supposed to root for anyone else? What do I know from biathlon?
Oh, and the personal-story coverage is way nauseating.
I loved the theme that John Williams wrote for the 1984 Olympics when I was little. My parents actually bought the album, and I listened to it over and over.
I've been trying to drop the ideas of this Kleiman (oh, it turns out it was by one of the other guys on his blog) post every time boxing comes up IRL, so might as well do it here too.
Doesn't the fact that they started letting pros compete have a lot to do with this? Or are we saying that by 1984 that process was already well under way?
Actually, I find the winter games a lot more exciting than the summer games. I mean, for the most part, the people in the winter olympics are, well, not shlubs, but they aren't getting paid a pantload to do what they do, even if they are pros. Then you've got sports like luge, bobsled, skeleton, super-g, downhill, all of which require humans to hurtle themselves down hill at speeds that seem ludicrous ("My brains are going into my feet!") with usually only a slim piece of metal between them and certain maiming and dismemberment. Figure skating? Boring. Curling? The US Curl Girls are hot. If anything, I think the winter games have a bit more mystique for me because you rarely ever see these sports televised, it's the underdog of the olympics, etc. But am I really excited? Meh. There are sports that I want to see, but NBC, I know, will fuck it up severely with Jimmy Roberts (When XYZ was a boy, all he wanted to do was ski. That is, until his grandmother died in a tragic maple syrup accident. He's since rededicated his life to maple-syrup awareness, and educates kids about the dangers of snorting and shooting up maple syrup.). I mean, NBC fucks up sports almost as bad as um... beer fucks up my liver.
29 - Your Björk comment got me thinking - even though I'm not usually a fan, I betcha Matthew Barney would do an awesome opening ceremony. Or at least a memorable one. That, I'd watch.
Ballroom dancing: also not a sport, if you can convince me that there's a risk of death involved (ballroom dancing, while on fire! ) I may change my mind.
I used to think that the reason I didn't enjoy the Olympics had everything to do with the annoying bio-pic American TV coverage. Then I watched some of the Athens games on Eurosport. Wide angle, commentary-less coverage of men in rowboats? Bo-ring.
I don't see why ballroom dancing shouldn't count as a sport. Lots of judged event count as sports, and the top levels of ballroom dancers are as fit as any other top athletes.
Under the general definition of "sport," I would agree. However, under my pompous definition of "sport" that I read somewhere on the internets and remembered long enough to post here in a Zeus-type decreenig sort of way, a "sport" must involve a significant risk of death, hence only boxing and car racing come to mind.
I might enjoy watching a version of ballroom dancing where two couples are dancing on top of an elevated platform and whichever successfully forced the other couple of the platform earned like twenty points (to be offset against the style points). I might watch that even if they were allowed a safety net.
I watch sports all the time, but never in my life have found the Olympics to be interesting in the least. Summer or winter. The one exception might be the year Jamaica fielded a bobsled team, just for the novelty. Oh, and I guess I kinda paid attention to the Kerrigan/Harding thing. Neither of which, obviously, had much to do with the respective sports (if you count figure skating, which I do not).
Agree with Apostropher. Judged sports can come in as legacies (e.g., existed in original Greek Olympics), but not in any other way. All other judged sports (diving, ice skating, etc.) should be banned from both the Olympics and ESPN. Also - poker is not a sport.
I have heard the argument against figure skating/ballroom dancing/synchronized swimming/gymnastics/whatever girly "sport" is under discussion being in the Olympics voiced roughly as: in these events, (a major part of) what is being judged is nuance, finesse, subjetive -- whereas in non-girly events that are legitimately sports, say downhill skiing or weightlifting, the primary quality being judged is objective -- in these cases speed and weight -- and thus more fit to be included in an Olympic contest of prowess. But it always seems to boil down to the girly-not-girly distinction perceived by the people who have voiced this and similar arguments to me.
Even if judging is a lame assessment model, it doesn't answer the real question, which is why does a sport have to have winners?
I agree that the winter games = gear thing is a real problem. Plus snow is gross and on some level the winter sports all seem the same: people sliding on snow/ice. Yawn. Individually each sport is interesting enough, but days on end of snow/ice sliding is dull.
The real reason the Olympics have grown dull, though, is this move to doing 'em every two years. They no longer seem special.
It's not officiating at issue for me, Cala (nor girliness, JO). It's the lack of an objective scoring system. I'm not saying ban them from the Olympics (because I just don't care about the Olympics), I'm saying they don't meet my internal definition of a sport. Of your second list, I'd agree with equestrian, moguls, and half-pipe.
45: Yeah. I'm not going to argue that the judging in figure skating is objective, but it's not completely subjective either. (And gymnastics doesn't even have an artistic component.) It's like all the calls are offensive pass interference or something.
JO: In figure skating, it's not just that the judges say 'Oh, I like that' and award it points. It's just that some of rules require a fair amount of experience and interpretation, like knowing whether a push was offensive pass interference or allowable scuffling.
Cala, there's a significant difference in the degree to which subjective judgments (or obscure officiating -whichever) comprise important parts of football as compared to ice skating.
I've competed in fencing. The judging seems just as made up somtimes.
I'll agree that football doesn't have a presentation component. The rest of the rulebook in skating, at least, is pretty detailed for something that's just subjective, especially with the new scoring system. Now it's randomized so the chances of a biased judge throwing the competition are a lot harder.
None of these sports would be banned from the Olympics anyway. Far too popular and moneymakers, except for synchronized swimming. And I imagine if ballroom were a winter sport, it would be counted: the IOC seems to add more winter sports and take away summer sports, probably because there has to be something to do for two weeks.
I don't really think of fencing as a sport, either. Unless you remove the buttons or whatever from tips of the blades and fight to the death. Then it's the ultimate sport!
there's a significant difference in the degree to which subjective judgments (or obscure officiating -whichever) comprise important parts of football as compared to ice skating
I think for Olympic skating now, there are nine judges and a technical supervisor. The tech supervisor's job is to identify the jumps (usually ruling whether a close call counts as a double or a triple), count the spin revolutions, and identify the levels (grades of difficulty, basically) of spins and connecting moves. Each jump, spin, and move sequence is worth a certain amount of points based on difficulty.
The judges then grade the performance on how well each of those was done (was the spin fast and centered? was the jump controlled? good extension? good edge quality?) based off of those starting marks and award the elements a 'grade of execution', which is plus or minus a point. Falls and some other errors are mandatory 1-point deductions. Then there's a program components score, which takes the place of the old artistic marking. This part is more subjective (and is the part most people complain about..)
Anyhow. The new scoring system then picks seven of the judges' scores at random and calculates the overall score by adding up all the points.
It seems to me that officiating ice skating is more akin to criticism than sports officiating. Not only are there intangibles at stake, but the metrics the judges do abide by are hard to explain to the layman.
69: I agree. But any sport with which the audience is unfamiliar will have nearly impenetrable rules. At least that was my experience trying to explain 'breaking the plane' and 'down by contact' to a bunch of furrign grad students, as well as where the pylon figures in all of that.
('Oh, never mind. The guys in the yellow pants are who you should cheer for.')
I think it's pretty obvious why painting doesn't qualify.
It really isn't, to me, anyway, Cala. I'm not being jokey here. But if all you are saying is that to be a sport, you only need that (a) there be some technique involved that can be judged by some broadly understood standard, and (b) being in shape helps, it seems like a really, really big group of things that qualify as sport.
Do you know what's a totally awesome they-call-it-a-sport-but-it's-not? The Westminster Dog Show. If you've never been and you're in NYC, I highly recommend it. It's next Monday and Tuesday. We went just for the hell of it a few years back and had a blast. It looks all fancy and prissy on TV but up in the cheap seats it's as crazy as a hockey match, with the guys hawking beer and drunken people yelling "RELEASE THE HOOOOUNDS".
But that's not what I was saying. All I was saying that simply because the techniques involved in an activity can't be measured by a stopwatch is no grounds for deciding that activity isn't a sport. Nor is the standard 'that the rules aren't easily comprehensible to the layman.'
Wow, thanks Becks! I will totally take Sylvia to that cause she loves dogs obsessively and likes to watch WKC reruns on TV, and sprinkles her conversation with references to "the toy group" and "the working group" even where the references are not appropriate. Tia -- breed judging is from 8:30 to 6, group judging after 6 -- at least that is the best I could glean from their web site which I found a little cryptic.
During the day, they have all of the dogs of the same breed compete against one another for Best in Breed. I've never gone for that. I've only gone for the nighttime events where all of the Best in Breed winners compete against each other for Best in Class and Best in Show, which is what you see if you watch Westminster on the USA Network. The broadcast is live so it's something like 8-11 PM. I think the breeds for the first night (Working, Terrier, Toy, and Non-Sporting) are cuter than the second (Sporting, Hound, and Herding) but people go absolutely nuts the second night when they announce Best in Show, which is amusing.
The cool thing is that Westminster is "benched", meaning that when people aren't showing their dogs they have to be in a special area so that the public can meet the dogs and talk to the owners so it's smart to get there early so you have time to do that before the show starts. That's worth the price of admission alone – you thought Best in Show was an exaggeration? Hardly.
I was going to make a stupid joke about 79 and toxic ultramarine, but googling and wikipedia turned up no easy results. Is the Yves Klein-died-from-his-blue thing a myth and a not particularly widespread one at that?
Cool, JO! The Westminster web site says that tickets are $100 but that's just the fancy seats for their members. You can get 300-level (and maybe 200-level) seats at MSG or from Ticketmaster for about $30 or $20 for kids.
Define "picked up by the blacklist". What message do you get? We did have some IPs banned automagically last night by MT. I'll check and see if any are from D.C.
Yeah this "benched" thingy is great -- I will take Sylvia there a bit before 5 (assuming I can get off a little early and meet up with her and Ellen w/o incident) catch the last couple of breed judgings, then we will go back and look at the dogs up close during the 5-8 dinner break, chat with the handlers, catch the first couple of best-in-class judgings, then head home.
Looked up the schedule, and curling is being broadcast from 3 AM to 11 AM from Feb 13 forwards. Looking for comment space and assistants for exciting live-blogging.
96:Emerson, my Irish half came down from Canada thru Michigan in the 1870s. And I listen to Gordon Lightfoot and Stars and Broken Social Scene and grew up on Sgt Preston so I claim dual citizenship. The paperwork can wait.
I'm pretty damn sure I read Bored of the Rings as a child. But I have absolutely no memory of it. Also I'm pretty sure it was the title of a MAD Magazine parody in 1981 or so. No memory of that either.
Lemme just say - Mad Magazine these days? Far more risqué than Mad Magazine in my day. I'm shocked my parents let my brothers subscribe. (Not that I care, it's just that they're pretty conservative about that stuff.)
Yeah, you mean the early MAD reprints, the comic book sized ones from before they went to the magazine format? They are great although I don't think they had any Sergio Aragones back then. Have you read the other EC titles? They were great too, mostly monster stuff like The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror.
You folks are a bunch of doody heads. The Olympics are wonderful.
Those folks are doing something really difficult, and they're doing it so well it looks almost easy. That deserves awe and wonder and respect.
I don't care whether any of it is a sport. I don't care whether the scoring is subjective. I don't care who wins. I certainly don't care about narratives of Overcoming Obstacles, or stories of how Perseverance Furthers. But watching people slide down a mountain going 125 miles per hour (as they showed tonight), and not merely live through it but actually look graceful, that's marvelous.
Most anything being done really well is worth watching. I'll watch people people building a cinderblock wall, if they're really good. Good carpenters are worth watching. Good secretaries. And good athletes are worth watching, too.
Sliding on ice, indeed. I could understand that if we were talking about writing, which is just a matter of putting words in a line. This stuff is hard.
A good friend of mine is studying abroad in Geneva this semester, and decided to go to the olympics at the last minute. She just bought her tickets this week I think. Naturally, everything is sold out, and there are no hotels. So her plan? Curling and women's ice hockey, and she and her friends are just going to stay up the whole night partying. No need for sleep.
Ok, I really shouldn't excerpt other people's e-mails, but my sis/ter went to Torino and caught a couple of events and here's some of what she had to say about curling:
I really like the curling events - they are so sus/penseful in a really slow way.
There's probably no reason to googleproof the phrase, but what/ever.
You're probably only going to keep one version of this post; I hope I'm commenting on the right one.
Interesting to hear of a young person losing what had been considerable interest--I would have attributed my loss to age and weariness.
Here's a thought: on top of everything else, we've lost that positive idea we used to have of the world and its variety.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 7:59 AM
I attribute Becks' loss to age and weariness.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:04 AM
I thought they had the Olympics last weekend! Didn't Pittsburgh win?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:05 AM
I'm perfectly happy to keep watching bobsled and luge events ... for the same reason many people go to NASCAR races: the crashes.
But I'm sick like that.
Posted by Al | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:05 AM
Fear not. There's an obvious explanation. "Winter sports" are not actually sports. It's perfectly reasonable to have no interest in what's going on now and still expect to be excited by the prospect of seeing the World's Fastest Human run the 100 meter race.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:08 AM
I think it's more than age. My brothers (who are 17 and 14) and their friends don't care, either. They've never felt as excited about an Olympics as I remember when I was a kid.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:10 AM
...in slow motion.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:11 AM
It's just the Winter Olympics that bore me. They're not bad to watch, but there's something less immediate about the sports — they require too much gear. When I watch the Summer Olympics I get the sense that the athletes are competing against the entire history of their sport — that we're really watching the strongest, fastest, physically best men and women of all time. With the Winter Olympics you really can't say that. The technology matters way too much.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:11 AM
1) The Winter games are less watchable than the Summer games.
2) The network sob stories get old very quickly.
3) During the second half of the last Summer games, I was travelling in Canada. The difference in the attitude toward the games on TV was remarkable. The ads in the U.S. were all about American athletes defeating rivals in challenges for GOLD GOLD GOLD! The Canadian ads? Peace, love, friendship, international cooperation.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:12 AM
8: I disagree. It's not that the sports require too much equipment, it's just that there's not as many races that are head-to-head competition. Short-track, certainly. Cross-country skiing - but that's like watching the marathon.
Most of the rest seem to be against the clock, and that's just not as much fun to watch unless you're already a fan of the sport. I don't know enough about skiing to tell if something's a good run unless they run the little clock in the corner. In swimming, I can see that someone's ahead and someone's catching up oh no!
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:17 AM
Cala: good point. I still dig a lot of non head-to-head competitions, though. Weightlifting, shotput and discus come to mind.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:21 AM
About what Cala said – I went to Dublin right before it hosted the Special Olympics and it was the coolest vibe ever. Each of the little towns surrounding the city sponsored athletes from a different country and decked out their main thoroughfares with banners and signs greeting the athletes in that country's language and all of the townspeople were bubbling with excitement. I really don't think they could have been more excited if they were hosting the actual Olympics.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:21 AM
Tom and Cala's comments make sense to me. I never much cared about the Winter Olympics until I started participating in a lot of the sports. I still don't much care about the other sports (like skating and hockey).
Posted by ptm | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:23 AM
Hmm. Maybe it's just that the sports are more common. I don't know what goes into mogul skiing, but my high school had track, ya know?
Shotput in the ancient Athens field was teh cool.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:25 AM
It is hard to separate any possibility of enjoyment from what's happened to the coverage. Aside from the activities of bona fide international stars, and there are never more than a couple of those and sometimes fewer, network coverage is entirely of Americans expected to win.
I remember, during the Summer Olympics before the last one, my wife called me that they were going to show the final of the cycling pursuit. This was because Marty Nothstein, the American, was expected to win. I found myself rooting for his opponent, the German Jens Fiedler. When Fiedler won, because he used better tactics, I felt a bit bad about my reflexive reaction. Marty Nothstein's not a bad guy, I bore him no ill will, I just wanted to spite the coverage, and its expectations.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:26 AM
I think if you're Irish or German or French, the wins are more rare, and the feeling of triumph is greater--no matter the sport. The whole nation suddenly becomes interested in rowing or archery or whatever. Presumably this will change if they ever really start to see themselves as Europeans, and complete as a bloc.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:34 AM
The decline of interest for me is the proliferation of sports involved. And the fact that running, for example, looks to be at or near its limit, in the sense that the times are so close. Plus, the whole aura of being an athlete seems sort of tainted by drugs. It has lost its purity as a pursuit.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:39 AM
First off, I think the Winter vs. Summer thing is overstated - a lot of the Winter stuff is just fine, even if it lacks the millenia-spanning quality of footraces and chariots.
What? They dropped the chariot!?
Christ. No wonder no one watches anymore.
Posted by JRoth | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:40 AM
Anyway, I was also going to say that I don't think it's the disappearance of the Soviets per se. I mean, the sense that the Olympics were the Ultimate Showdown was valuable, but I think that, more importantly, it made rooting for the US feel less overdoggish. I mean, especially in the Winters, we had to fight for every medal we could get. Now it just feels like we get as many medals as we want. So rooting for the home team feels lame. But, really, on what basis am I supposed to root for anyone else? What do I know from biathlon?
Oh, and the personal-story coverage is way nauseating.
Posted by JRoth | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:43 AM
I loved the theme that John Williams wrote for the 1984 Olympics when I was little. My parents actually bought the album, and I listened to it over and over.
That, and "To All The Girls I've Loved Before".
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:44 AM
JRoth is clearly drunk. Or a jihadist. It's the winter vs. summer thing.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:44 AM
It's the drunk jihadists you have to look out for, you know....
Posted by JRoth | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:46 AM
Boxing and car racing are the only true sports, the rest are just kid's games played by adults.
Posted by Ugh | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:48 AM
Car racing would be a kid's game, too, if not for the nanny state.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:53 AM
ballroom dancing ≠ a kid's game
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:55 AM
I've been trying to drop the ideas of this Kleiman (oh, it turns out it was by one of the other guys on his blog) post every time boxing comes up IRL, so might as well do it here too.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:01 AM
Doesn't the fact that they started letting pros compete have a lot to do with this? Or are we saying that by 1984 that process was already well under way?
Posted by mealworm | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:02 AM
My Canadianized brother is actually following the curling. He's lost to Amurrica.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:04 AM
The last straw for me was when Bob Costas and Katie Couric talked over Björk’s song during the Athens opening ceremonies.
Posted by hilker | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:11 AM
Actually, I find the winter games a lot more exciting than the summer games. I mean, for the most part, the people in the winter olympics are, well, not shlubs, but they aren't getting paid a pantload to do what they do, even if they are pros. Then you've got sports like luge, bobsled, skeleton, super-g, downhill, all of which require humans to hurtle themselves down hill at speeds that seem ludicrous ("My brains are going into my feet!") with usually only a slim piece of metal between them and certain maiming and dismemberment. Figure skating? Boring. Curling? The US Curl Girls are hot. If anything, I think the winter games have a bit more mystique for me because you rarely ever see these sports televised, it's the underdog of the olympics, etc. But am I really excited? Meh. There are sports that I want to see, but NBC, I know, will fuck it up severely with Jimmy Roberts (When XYZ was a boy, all he wanted to do was ski. That is, until his grandmother died in a tragic maple syrup accident. He's since rededicated his life to maple-syrup awareness, and educates kids about the dangers of snorting and shooting up maple syrup.). I mean, NBC fucks up sports almost as bad as um... beer fucks up my liver.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:13 AM
That's just despicable.
You didn't get to see the titties either.
('Titties' in tribute to Ogged, or whoever.)
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:15 AM
29 - Your Björk comment got me thinking - even though I'm not usually a fan, I betcha Matthew Barney would do an awesome opening ceremony. Or at least a memorable one. That, I'd watch.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:16 AM
31 to 29.
'Figure skating? Boring.'
But the girls have really revealing outfits!
Not that I've watched more than 30 seconds of figure skating. I've never watched the olympics.
The change to over the top sexy outfits in a lot of sports over the past 8 years is... interesting. I guess I approve.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:25 AM
Ballroom dancing: also not a sport, if you can convince me that there's a risk of death involved (ballroom dancing, while on fire! ) I may change my mind.
Posted by Ugh | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:48 AM
I used to think that the reason I didn't enjoy the Olympics had everything to do with the annoying bio-pic American TV coverage. Then I watched some of the Athens games on Eurosport. Wide angle, commentary-less coverage of men in rowboats? Bo-ring.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 10:09 AM
I don't see why ballroom dancing shouldn't count as a sport. Lots of judged event count as sports, and the top levels of ballroom dancers are as fit as any other top athletes.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 10:11 AM
Cala -
Under the general definition of "sport," I would agree. However, under my pompous definition of "sport" that I read somewhere on the internets and remembered long enough to post here in a Zeus-type decreenig sort of way, a "sport" must involve a significant risk of death, hence only boxing and car racing come to mind.
So it has been posted by Ugh, so let it be done.
Posted by Ugh | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 10:21 AM
I might enjoy watching a version of ballroom dancing where two couples are dancing on top of an elevated platform and whichever successfully forced the other couple of the platform earned like twenty points (to be offset against the style points). I might watch that even if they were allowed a safety net.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 10:28 AM
I watch sports all the time, but never in my life have found the Olympics to be interesting in the least. Summer or winter. The one exception might be the year Jamaica fielded a bobsled team, just for the novelty. Oh, and I guess I kinda paid attention to the Kerrigan/Harding thing. Neither of which, obviously, had much to do with the respective sports (if you count figure skating, which I do not).
But otherwise, pure boredom.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 10:35 AM
I don't see why ballroom dancing shouldn't count as a sport.
You've got to be kidding. I think some gamer claimed that video game champs perform better if they are in good shape. Still not a sport.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 10:49 AM
Because ballroom's fundamentally an athletic activity with an international recognized competitve structure?
What's missing that makes it not a sport? That's it's judged? That knocks out a whole lot of other Olympic sports, too.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:04 AM
That knocks out a whole lot of other Olympic sports, too.
Justifiably, I'd say.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:06 AM
Agree with Apostropher. Judged sports can come in as legacies (e.g., existed in original Greek Olympics), but not in any other way. All other judged sports (diving, ice skating, etc.) should be banned from both the Olympics and ESPN. Also - poker is not a sport.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:14 AM
More than you think, apo. I mean, people complained about the officiating at the Super Bowl.
But a rule like I've seen some proposed: 'Only men against the clock.' rules out... let's see.
Figure skating
Gymnastics
Diving
Rhythmic gymnastics
Synchronized swimming.
Most people are okay with those going, well, at least when they forget that diving counts as judged.
Of course, there's many more judged sports, if judging means it's not just pure player vs. player...:
Fencing
Archery/Riflery
Any non-racing skiing event (moguls, snowboarding halfpipe)
Biathlon
Equestrian
Pentathlon
Short-track speedskating
Soccer
Basketball
&etc
I don't see ballroom being worse than any of those.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:14 AM
I have heard the argument against figure skating/ballroom dancing/synchronized swimming/gymnastics/whatever girly "sport" is under discussion being in the Olympics voiced roughly as: in these events, (a major part of) what is being judged is nuance, finesse, subjetive -- whereas in non-girly events that are legitimately sports, say downhill skiing or weightlifting, the primary quality being judged is objective -- in these cases speed and weight -- and thus more fit to be included in an Olympic contest of prowess. But it always seems to boil down to the girly-not-girly distinction perceived by the people who have voiced this and similar arguments to me.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:18 AM
Even if judging is a lame assessment model, it doesn't answer the real question, which is why does a sport have to have winners?
I agree that the winter games = gear thing is a real problem. Plus snow is gross and on some level the winter sports all seem the same: people sliding on snow/ice. Yawn. Individually each sport is interesting enough, but days on end of snow/ice sliding is dull.
The real reason the Olympics have grown dull, though, is this move to doing 'em every two years. They no longer seem special.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:22 AM
Plus, what Jeremy said. Legacy sports = sports that men did back before women were allowed to be sporty.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:24 AM
Wow, they started having 'em every two years? I thought they seemed oddly frequent of late.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:25 AM
It's not officiating at issue for me, Cala (nor girliness, JO). It's the lack of an objective scoring system. I'm not saying ban them from the Olympics (because I just don't care about the Olympics), I'm saying they don't meet my internal definition of a sport. Of your second list, I'd agree with equestrian, moguls, and half-pipe.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:26 AM
45: Yeah. I'm not going to argue that the judging in figure skating is objective, but it's not completely subjective either. (And gymnastics doesn't even have an artistic component.) It's like all the calls are offensive pass interference or something.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:26 AM
48: Summer is every four years, winter is every four years, but they stagger them so that one or the other is hapening every even-numbered year.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:28 AM
It's like all the calls are offensive pass interference or something.
Could you clarify this? Cause I don't understand what it means.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:31 AM
which is why does a sport have to have winners
Oh. My. Gawd. You can't possibly mean that, can you?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:34 AM
JO: In figure skating, it's not just that the judges say 'Oh, I like that' and award it points. It's just that some of rules require a fair amount of experience and interpretation, like knowing whether a push was offensive pass interference or allowable scuffling.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:38 AM
Cala, there's a significant difference in the degree to which subjective judgments (or obscure officiating -whichever) comprise important parts of football as compared to ice skating.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:38 AM
54 -- thanks.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:40 AM
This thread is as boring as the winter Olympics itself. Doesn't the Russell self-reference paradox kick in at some point?
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:42 AM
They still have Olympics?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:44 AM
It would have been even funnier if, during his impeachment, Bill Clinton had been forced to testify naked while on tape. How's that, old man?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:44 AM
I've competed in fencing. The judging seems just as made up somtimes.
I'll agree that football doesn't have a presentation component. The rest of the rulebook in skating, at least, is pretty detailed for something that's just subjective, especially with the new scoring system. Now it's randomized so the chances of a biased judge throwing the competition are a lot harder.
None of these sports would be banned from the Olympics anyway. Far too popular and moneymakers, except for synchronized swimming. And I imagine if ballroom were a winter sport, it would be counted: the IOC seems to add more winter sports and take away summer sports, probably because there has to be something to do for two weeks.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:46 AM
testify naked while on tape
Also not a sport.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:49 AM
I don't really think of fencing as a sport, either. Unless you remove the buttons or whatever from tips of the blades and fight to the death. Then it's the ultimate sport!
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:49 AM
Cala, what does randomized mean in this context?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:50 AM
there's a significant difference in the degree to which subjective judgments (or obscure officiating -whichever) comprise important parts of football as compared to ice skating
Tell that to Pete Morelli.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:52 AM
also not a sport
Say, does the porn industry have an Olympics-style competition?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:55 AM
...and does it feature a synchronized cocksucking event?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:56 AM
Sorry, apo. Sick and writing worse than usual.
I think for Olympic skating now, there are nine judges and a technical supervisor. The tech supervisor's job is to identify the jumps (usually ruling whether a close call counts as a double or a triple), count the spin revolutions, and identify the levels (grades of difficulty, basically) of spins and connecting moves. Each jump, spin, and move sequence is worth a certain amount of points based on difficulty.
The judges then grade the performance on how well each of those was done (was the spin fast and centered? was the jump controlled? good extension? good edge quality?) based off of those starting marks and award the elements a 'grade of execution', which is plus or minus a point. Falls and some other errors are mandatory 1-point deductions. Then there's a program components score, which takes the place of the old artistic marking. This part is more subjective (and is the part most people complain about..)
Anyhow. The new scoring system then picks seven of the judges' scores at random and calculates the overall score by adding up all the points.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:15 PM
The last sentence of 46 gets it exactly right.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:19 PM
It seems to me that officiating ice skating is more akin to criticism than sports officiating. Not only are there intangibles at stake, but the metrics the judges do abide by are hard to explain to the layman.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:25 PM
The last sentence of 46 gets it exactly right.
Do you mean the last two sentences of 46? Cause the last sentence taken by itself is just a reiteration of the main post.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:30 PM
Agree with Armsmasher. I'm not sure why "painting" couldn't be considered a sport under your definition, Cala.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:31 PM
The last two sentences of 46 get it exactly right.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:36 PM
69: I agree. But any sport with which the audience is unfamiliar will have nearly impenetrable rules. At least that was my experience trying to explain 'breaking the plane' and 'down by contact' to a bunch of furrign grad students, as well as where the pylon figures in all of that.
('Oh, never mind. The guys in the yellow pants are who you should cheer for.')
I think it's pretty obvious why painting doesn't qualify.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:40 PM
It really isn't, to me, anyway, Cala. I'm not being jokey here. But if all you are saying is that to be a sport, you only need that (a) there be some technique involved that can be judged by some broadly understood standard, and (b) being in shape helps, it seems like a really, really big group of things that qualify as sport.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:45 PM
Do you know what's a totally awesome they-call-it-a-sport-but-it's-not? The Westminster Dog Show. If you've never been and you're in NYC, I highly recommend it. It's next Monday and Tuesday. We went just for the hell of it a few years back and had a blast. It looks all fancy and prissy on TV but up in the cheap seats it's as crazy as a hockey match, with the guys hawking beer and drunken people yelling "RELEASE THE HOOOOUNDS".
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:49 PM
Is it in the evening too, Becks?
Damn, but I lost my glasses. Nothing will be fun for me for a long time.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:51 PM
But that's not what I was saying. All I was saying that simply because the techniques involved in an activity can't be measured by a stopwatch is no grounds for deciding that activity isn't a sport. Nor is the standard 'that the rules aren't easily comprehensible to the layman.'
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:53 PM
OK, but then what is the definition of "sport"?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:55 PM
Painting is great sport.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 12:59 PM
Wow, thanks Becks! I will totally take Sylvia to that cause she loves dogs obsessively and likes to watch WKC reruns on TV, and sprinkles her conversation with references to "the toy group" and "the working group" even where the references are not appropriate. Tia -- breed judging is from 8:30 to 6, group judging after 6 -- at least that is the best I could glean from their web site which I found a little cryptic.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:03 PM
79 is NSFW
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:07 PM
During the day, they have all of the dogs of the same breed compete against one another for Best in Breed. I've never gone for that. I've only gone for the nighttime events where all of the Best in Breed winners compete against each other for Best in Class and Best in Show, which is what you see if you watch Westminster on the USA Network. The broadcast is live so it's something like 8-11 PM. I think the breeds for the first night (Working, Terrier, Toy, and Non-Sporting) are cuter than the second (Sporting, Hound, and Herding) but people go absolutely nuts the second night when they announce Best in Show, which is amusing.
The cool thing is that Westminster is "benched", meaning that when people aren't showing their dogs they have to be in a special area so that the public can meet the dogs and talk to the owners so it's smart to get there early so you have time to do that before the show starts. That's worth the price of admission alone – you thought Best in Show was an exaggeration? Hardly.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:10 PM
I was going to make a stupid joke about 79 and toxic ultramarine, but googling and wikipedia turned up no easy results. Is the Yves Klein-died-from-his-blue thing a myth and a not particularly widespread one at that?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:10 PM
Cool, JO! The Westminster web site says that tickets are $100 but that's just the fancy seats for their members. You can get 300-level (and maybe 200-level) seats at MSG or from Ticketmaster for about $30 or $20 for kids.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:15 PM
Hey, what gives, moderators—every time I try to leave a comment I get picked up by the blacklist. Have I, in fact, finally been banned?
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:17 PM
Define "picked up by the blacklist". What message do you get? We did have some IPs banned automagically last night by MT. I'll check and see if any are from D.C.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:20 PM
JackM, this mentions toxicity but suggests it was the benzedrine that killed him.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:22 PM
They aren't showing up as quarantined, Smasher. Did your comment contain a link?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:22 PM
Yves Klein's unfortunate accident.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:23 PM
Yeah this "benched" thingy is great -- I will take Sylvia there a bit before 5 (assuming I can get off a little early and meet up with her and Ellen w/o incident) catch the last couple of breed judgings, then we will go back and look at the dogs up close during the 5-8 dinner break, chat with the handlers, catch the first couple of best-in-class judgings, then head home.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:24 PM
I suspect blacklist didn't care for the link I was trying to submit. Np.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:25 PM
Huh. I guess there's more tragic irony in "his beautiful blue killed him" than in "too much speed will kill you over time."
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:25 PM
Winter Olympics starting? Is there curling? Curling. When's the curling? I am serious. I want some hours of curling.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 1:58 PM
I haven't seen much interest in the fall of the Soviet Union theory I posited in the post, but Slate seems to agree.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 3:09 PM
I haven't seen much interest in the fall of the Soviet Union theory I posited in the post, but Slate seems to agree.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 3:09 PM
Et tu, McManus?
Curling is the most un-American sport. Bozkashi, by contrast, would be a fine American game.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 4:30 PM
Emerson:
Somewhere, Bill Clinton is naked. And I am laughing.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 4:33 PM
And I am laughing.
Also not a sport.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 4:34 PM
What about taunting Emerson? Sport or not a sport?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 4:38 PM
Number
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 7:29 PM
Than what?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 7:47 PM
Than I was before.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 7:48 PM
99: Only if he snaps and kills you.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 7:59 PM
The winter olympics kick ass, though I did just find myself flipping between that ballroom reality show and Bode's training run.
But anyway, you're all just heartless cynics. Sliding on snow and ice is fun.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 8:56 PM
Looked up the schedule, and curling is being broadcast from 3 AM to 11 AM from Feb 13 forwards. Looking for comment space and assistants for exciting live-blogging.
96:Emerson, my Irish half came down from Canada thru Michigan in the 1870s. And I listen to Gordon Lightfoot and Stars and Broken Social Scene and grew up on Sgt Preston so I claim dual citizenship. The paperwork can wait.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:11 PM
So has anyone here read Bored of the Rings? Is it actually funny?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:16 PM
106 - My father loves it. I never read it, though. But, then again, I've never read LOTR.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:23 PM
I'm pretty damn sure I read Bored of the Rings as a child. But I have absolutely no memory of it. Also I'm pretty sure it was the title of a MAD Magazine parody in 1981 or so. No memory of that either.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:31 PM
Lemme just say - Mad Magazine these days? Far more risqué than Mad Magazine in my day. I'm shocked my parents let my brothers subscribe. (Not that I care, it's just that they're pretty conservative about that stuff.)
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:34 PM
You know what's surprisingly excellent? MAD from the fifties. The collection MAD About the Fifties has some really top-notch stuff.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:37 PM
Yeah, you mean the early MAD reprints, the comic book sized ones from before they went to the magazine format? They are great although I don't think they had any Sergio Aragones back then. Have you read the other EC titles? They were great too, mostly monster stuff like The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:46 PM
No, actually I meant the stuff from after the format switch (though some of the pre-switch stuff is good too). It's often quite incisive.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 9:48 PM
You folks are a bunch of doody heads. The Olympics are wonderful.
Those folks are doing something really difficult, and they're doing it so well it looks almost easy. That deserves awe and wonder and respect.
I don't care whether any of it is a sport. I don't care whether the scoring is subjective. I don't care who wins. I certainly don't care about narratives of Overcoming Obstacles, or stories of how Perseverance Furthers. But watching people slide down a mountain going 125 miles per hour (as they showed tonight), and not merely live through it but actually look graceful, that's marvelous.
Most anything being done really well is worth watching. I'll watch people people building a cinderblock wall, if they're really good. Good carpenters are worth watching. Good secretaries. And good athletes are worth watching, too.
Sliding on ice, indeed. I could understand that if we were talking about writing, which is just a matter of putting words in a line. This stuff is hard.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 10:24 PM
A good friend of mine is studying abroad in Geneva this semester, and decided to go to the olympics at the last minute. She just bought her tickets this week I think. Naturally, everything is sold out, and there are no hotels. So her plan? Curling and women's ice hockey, and she and her friends are just going to stay up the whole night partying. No need for sleep.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 02-10-06 11:03 PM
106: I thought Bored of the Rings was very funny. I am, however, terribly lowbrow.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-11-06 6:51 AM
Ok, I really shouldn't excerpt other people's e-mails, but my sis/ter went to Torino and caught a couple of events and here's some of what she had to say about curling:
There's probably no reason to googleproof the phrase, but what/ever.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 02-16-06 1:04 PM