Beijing Olympics 2008 Discussion

[prasen9]

Why should football(soccer) and baseball be part of the Olympics?  Soccer does not allow the top players to play and baseball does not either.  I say do away with those, though, I will be sentimentally sad to see football go.  Instead bring in dragon boat racing, rugby and squash.  I do not know how many people play trampoline, and why there should be taekwondo.  Replace taekwondo with karate.  The latter is more popular.  I am aware that karate did not get enough votes for the London Olympics and I presume taekwondo did.  These artsy things like synchronized swimming, diving, rythmic gymnastics, trampoline, etc. should also be done away with.  They result in controversies.  If I want to see artsy things, I would go to a theater.

[mugu]

That MS Gill said it, or that we have qualified in the past Olympics for the final, is not reason for the press to not even mention that it is the really good improvements from a host of other countries that pushed us out.I was not at all disappointed, in short
Jay

Though there was no praise as such, The Hindu had this report
http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/23/stories ... 221800.htm

[mugu]

These artsy things like synchronized swimming, diving, rythmic gymnastics, etc. should also be done away with.  They result in controversies.  If I want to see artsy things, I would go to a theater.

I full agree with you Prasen.

[prasen9]

Technically, gymnastics would also fall in that category, but, given the history of the sports and given that in at least the men's routines the degree of showing off is less, I would let it stay.  I am not saying that it is an easy sports by any means, but, there is no real direct competition or real metric by which to judge.  I know of the guidelines the federations come up with, but, it is still very subjective.  Of course, I do not make any decision and this is an opinion only.

[Prashant]

You'll be happy to know that baseball (and softball) are going away - this is the last Olympics where they are scheduled. I also know that squash has been trying for at least 2 decades to get in, but never gets enough votes. No clue about rugby though - that would be fun, and would allow the Pacific island countries to be in contention for a medal.

[jayakris]

I am also fully with you prasen.    Any event that requires subjective judgment should be thrown out.   It is OK to have judges as in boxing and wrestling (where a third party with a video can verify post-facto using simple objective rules what should have been the points, even if the judges do make mistakes during the fast event and fail in their duties)

I am actually OK in there being some medals in diving, gymnastics etc, but just one inidvidual medal like they have for heptathalon etc, where we pick the best gymnast or best diver. The medal inflation (carefully set up at various times in history to pad some countries' medal tallies) is just too much.  It is disgusting.

Also, if anybody can win 8 medals and 3+ medal performances are routine for any event (hint! swimming), there are far too many medals in that sport.

For me, Bolt was the incredible personality of this Olympics (Two Chilean tennis players were the incredible superhuman ones for me at Athens) .. Phelps is not even close because I have seen swimmers in other Olympics grabbing a bunch of medals, though not 8 .. As somebody wrote in an article I saw, Bolt does not get a chance to run backwards .. I would add that he does not get a chance to flap his hands and run, or run with his hands tied in front.  I mean, it is crazy.

My only complaint about Olympics for a long time, and it is on an absolutely fundamental flaw, is that there is so much disparity in the quality of a Gold medal because of medal inflation.

Instead of trying to keep away some sports from Olympics, they should be reducing the medals and events in existing fields.

Jay

[prasen9]

If you were to give the ability design to an information scientist who would invariably make everything too complex and screw it up, I would advocate weights for different golds.  It is a real travesty of justice that a tightly fought basketball gold just fetches you one gold but for swimming you get tons.  Create a final championship with points.  Basketball gold should get you at least five times the points as swimming butterfly for 100m.  If there is a very high correlation between the winners in some competitions, say, 50m swimming and 100m swimming, then do away with one.  I am reluctant to do that because some poor fringe guy who can only manage to win a bronze in 100m will have no medal, so the point system would fix the medal inflation.

Just like they have the Winter Olympics, for which I couldn't care less, they could have an Artistic Olympics and have all these artistic games there with all their inherent controversies.  And btw, I do like and enjoy some art forms, so it is not my bias against art.

[prasen9]

Congratulations to Russian Olympic Bronze Medalist Becky Hammon.  I like her attitude.  If you are not good enough to play for the USA or the US team does not select you, go play for another team and make the best of it.  Hammon "works" in Russia because she plays in their league.  Congratulations to Olympian Chris Kaman and congratulations to the Singapuri TT silver-medalist team.  They found a way to become Olympians and to win.  That, imho, is the Olympic spirit.

On another note, I think all individual sports should just have the top-n players participating.  If women's tennis has 13 Russians among the top-32, let them all play and not only three.  They have worked hard in their lives and want to be an Olympian.  Why deprive excellence for the sake of mediocrity?  Let the games be better.  Do away with the qualifying mess, quotas, etc., and just select the top-n ranked players based on the rankings some 4-6 weeks before the Olympics.

[Prashant]

I'm completely with you on silly non-sports like rhythmic gymnastics, but you're being harsh on swimming. The different strokes are really very different skills (vastly more so than shooting at the same target from 3 positions for example) and I think separate medals are entirely justified. Spare a thought for a guy like Kitajima who completely dominates at breast stroke, but wouldn't be in the same pool when it comes to the other strokes. Ask any recreational swimmer how much harder it is to master butterfly stroke than the crawl.

My criterion is that I can live with technical judgment but cannot abide aesthetic judgment masquerading as sport. So I'm OK with, for example, judging during wrestling. There is subjectivity, but it is based on technical criteria. Rhythmic gymnastics, synchronized swimming & ice-dancing on the other hand, belong in the realm of ballroom dancing. Fun & often difficult activities, but not sport.

[puneets]

Shashi Tharoor's article in the WaPo comparing India's and China's overall view on Olympics and sports in general.

Two Countries, Different Aims
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02401.html

[prasen9]

I am not for eliminating different strokes in swimming but for eliminating different distances.  For example, instead of 50m, 100m, 200m, why not just have 100m and then 400m or something like that.  In track, it is somewhat different because of the curve in the track.  So, 100m and 200m are somewhat different.

For the weight-category sports, can the number of categories be reduced?

One non-related thing.  The term "dinghy" almost surely has Indian origins.  I think the etymology of the word can be traced to Bangla, Hindi, or maybe Urdu.  However, for all these dinghy sailing events, we are nowhere close to being the best in even Asia.  Maybe modern training makes better sailors ...

[jayakris]

That's correct .. From dictionary.com

din·ghy  /ˈdɪŋgi/  [ding-gee] -noun, plural -ghies.

1. any small boat designed as a tender or lifeboat, esp. a small ship's boat, rowed, sailed, or driven by a motor. 
2. a boat used by warships, having four single-banked oars and a spritsail. 
3. any of various rowing or sailing boats used in sheltered waters along the Indian coasts to transport passengers and freight. 
4. an inflatable life raft. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Origin: 1785–95; Bengali dingi, Hindi dingi, dim. of dinga boat]

[prasen9]

Thanks, Jay.  As I had thought.  There are too many references in Bangla literature (poems and prose) for it to be a word borrowed from the English.

So hundreds of years of survival for the fishermen and others in the coastal areas amidst bad weather have not generated any genetic selection.  Or we have not tapped the potential of those people because they may be busy trying to get food on their table with the fish stock going down.  Maybe SAI should do a talent hunt in our coastal areas for excellent boatskids and train them.

[prasen9]

The only sports where professionals do not compete is boxing.  Why do they still have these arcane rules? 

Boxing cleaned up after the ouster of Anwar Chowdhry of Pakistan as its head.  What is it with corruption and inefficiency and Indian subcontinent sports administrators?  Maybe it is a reflection of corruption in general life in our countries.

The judges missed one of Akhil's score and he got behind.  However, it seems scoring has been reasonably fair this time.  I thought the Vijendar semi-final fight was very fairly scored.

[shaili]

since the beijing olympics results thread is locked, i am posting this here.

can somebody please compile a list of final standings / scores / positions / medals for all 56 indian athletes.

please...