Olympics

But the football season has started, how can you expect us to care about a little thing like the Olympics? Speaking of which, in the Olympic football the rules are - as I understand them - something like, you can only have players who are under 23 but you are allowed three who are over this age limit. How can anything with such completely arbitrary rules have any credibility whatsoever? In fact, in general, what is the actual Olympic policy with regard to professionals? Basketball has 'em, so does tennis, boxing doesn't and so on and so forth - seems to me that there is a complete lack of consistency that I find extremely unsatisfactory. Also, there are so many sports now the whole thing is just a mess - what does it take for something to be accepted as an Olympic sport these days? Not much I suspect.
At least the politics of it all are completely sound.

"Pros can now take part (been like that for a while), but can't get paid."

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But that didn't occur simultaneously across all events did it? And is it applied consistently across all events now?

IdleRich said:

But that didn't occur simultaneously across all events did it? And is it applied consistently across all events now?

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It should be open to pros who've never won a pro tournament. Who knows, it could give Tim Henman's career a new lease of life.

"Er, not boxing, for sure."

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So are they actually banned or could it be that they could compete in the Olympics if they wanted but none of them want to do something for free that they normally get paid millions of dollars for? But if they are banned then how do the Olympic Comittee justify the inconsistency?
I'd just like to add that all sports where the winner is decided by points allocated by judges are completely rubbish. Maybe not as activities but as competitive sports they just don't make sense; I'm thinking synchronised swimming, ice dance, gymnastics, diving etc here. There are altogether too many of these in the Olympics for my liking.

IdleRich said:

So are they actually banned or could it be that they could compete in the Olympics if they wanted but none of them want to do something for free that they normally get paid millions of dollars for? But if they are banned then how do the Olympic Comittee justify the inconsistency?
I'd just like to add that all sports where the winner is decided by points allocated by judges are completely rubbish. Maybe not as activities but as competitive sports they just don't make sense; I'm thinking synchronised swimming, ice dance, gymnastics, diving etc here. There are altogether too many of these in the Olympics for my liking.

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I think the professional / amateur thing is done on a case by case basis depending on what the structure of that sport is like and how strong the amateur sector is.

Agree with you on the points based sports. Also there's a reasonably argument that any if being the olympic champion isn't the biggest international honour in your discipline (as in foopball, tennis etc) then that discipline shouldn't be in the olympics.

But tbh my main problem with it is that the track and field events are core to the idea of the olympics however you look at it, and I find most of those pretty dull as well.

"Also there's a reasonably argument that any if being the olympic champion isn't the biggest international honour in your discipline (as in foopball, tennis etc) then that discipline shouldn't be in the olympics."

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Yes, I think that would be a good place to start from - I mean, it's ok if you've got things where it's debatable which is more prestigious (eg 100m World Champion or 100m Olympic Champion) but where the gulf is as huge as World Cup vs Olympics there seems little point in the Olympics bothering to stage its own version.
I also hate that ice-skate sprinting thing where about ninety percent of the performers fall over. Anyone who enters that has a reasonable chance of reaching the final by default. Plus, how much difference is there really between two different types of rowing where everything is the same except for one has a cox and one doesn't?
And don't get me started on triple-jump... doesn't that actually date from the ancient games which just goes to show how stupid it's always been.

"That's almost the perfect spectator sport. You'll be telling me you don't like the Grand National or really muddy football matches next."

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I take your point. I might enter it next time around, do you know where you get the forms for the GB team heats?
Swimming gets my goat as well. Fair enough you have different distances but why have all the different styles? Just swim your fastest style, whichever it is, breast stroke and backstroke are completely pointless, it's like having a different race for people who want to run the hundred metres (and 200, 400, 800, 1500 etc) backwards or hopping on one leg* - no wonder the swimming heats are interminable - if it's such a good way to swim just do it in the freestyle, if it's not then let it drop out of use.

"As does running until you die, throwing weird objects an unfeasibly long distance, seeing who can bugger the most underage children... what's the problem here?"

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No problem with the antiquity, it's just that triple-jump is a sport that would be too stupid and boring for people to invent now and wouldn't even be in the games if it wasn't for its historical role. To be honest I don't understand it survived and the other slightly more sensible sports you mentioned didn't.


*er, or walking

"Just turn up on the day - can't see the Uk competition being that fierce."

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I dunno, we had the favourite once (O'Reilly or Reilly or something?) but he fell over.

"I've always wondered how they do the disabled Olympics. Is there a separate race at every distannce for every disability? It's hardly fair on, say, people with no arms if they're racing against men in wheelchairs."

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I think that they do have an enormous number of events divided by class of disability but there are still some things that seem not quite fair. Point is though, that makes sense, unlike the people who deliberately swim in a slower style and then demand their own special event so they've got a chance of winning.
On the other hand I don't get that guy who is basically slightly short-sighted who wins all the blind golf events.

good thread, i agree with all/most of these points. why waste time decrying the politics of it when the sport itself is so rubbish? swimming? archery? DRESSAGE? give me a break. i used to enjoy some of the track and field when i was younger (i actually went to the barca olympics as a kid), but the drugs issue means that most of those events lack any integrity now too.

is it true every olympic host gets to add one event to the roster? london 2012, what's it going to be? bar billiards? darts?

mos dan said:

is it true every olympic host gets to add one event to the roster? london 2012, what's it going to be? bar billiards? darts?

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"good thread, i agree with all/most of these points. why waste time decrying the politics of it when the sport itself is so rubbish? swimming? archery? DRESSAGE? give me a break. i used to enjoy some of the track and field when i was younger (i actually went to the barca olympics as a kid), but the drugs issue means that most of those events lack any integrity now too."

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What's particularly depressing that is GB now only win medals in events which demand loads of equipment and thus only a few countries are rich enough to have a deep pool of potential competitors in them (eg yachting, archery, rowing), or events which are too boring for anyone else to care about (dressage whatever that is).

"is it true every olympic host gets to add one event to the roster? london 2012, what's it going to be? bar billiards? darts?"

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Surely that's not true? If it is we should definitely go for snooker, then GB could surely get gold, silver and bronze.
On the other hand squash is apparently not an Olympic sport yet so maybe a more disinterested and less morally dubious move would be to right this wrong and get it recognised - seriously, how can joke games such as synchronised swimming or basketball be counted and squash not? The medallists in those events must be embarrassed every time they remember that they are taking up space and time that could be used for real athletes.

USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

uh, anyways, that said NBC's olympic game coverage sucks ass and i wish i could watch the BBC online on (or that my internet connection was fast enough for a proxy...)

china is gonna get most the medals this olympics, heads will roll if they don't, plus they are smart enough to target events like rowing that theoretically anyone could do and have tons of events (and tons of medals)...

and three cheers for india's first individual gold... dude grew up with an air conditioned shooting range... picturing that in India (where probably like .001% of buildings have air conditioning) is really funny...

So that kid fucked up in the diving. Oh well. I think that the Guardian's Sam Wollaston summed up my feelings on this (and other sports which are decided by judges) quite nicely.

"It's clear that no one understands the scoring, not even the people doing it. A dive by the German pair gets four and a half out of 10 for execution from one judge and nine out of 10 from another. And none of the numbers corresponds with what the commentators have just said about the dive. It's basically the Eurovision Song Contest, in Speedos.
"Well Done Tom," says Hazel Irivine, back in the studio, when it's all over. Well done? He came last! He may be cute, and remarkably poised with the international media, but he's not good enough - not yet, anyway. After all the hype the boy turns out to be a national disgrace. Send him to bed."

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Oh dear

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/ot...l-red-faced-over-slit-eyed-Olympic-photo.html

Wasn't it the Spanish basketball team that entered a load of able bodied players to the Para-Olympics? If I remember rightly the coach had to tell them to stop winning so easily because people were getting suspicious.

oi oi oi!













............. i keed, i keed, but seriously does the UK win stuff in the summer olympics?