Tuesday, August 19, 2008
I’m hearing lots of chatter
about the Olympics “Medal Count”, and how China is really cleaning up this time around.
However, I notice a pattern developing…
There are two kinds of Olympic sports, and this applies to both sets of Olympics, Summer and Winter.
There are objective events and subjective events.
The objective events are those where an objective standard can be applied to the outcome. Team X scored more points than Team Y. Athlete Q crossed the finish line before Athlete R did. Or threw the javelin farther or hit more of the pistol targets. Events like all of the swimming competitions, track and field, the archery and fencing competitions.
The subjective events are any that require the phrase “degree of difficulty” and have a bunch of judges from various countries deciding how well the athlete did, based on some hair’s-breadth difference between one teenager doing things to their body that make me cringe when I see them and another teenager doing exactly the same things, and the only time I can see a difference is when one teenager puts a foot just a little out of bounds, and the whole audience groans.
It is those subjective events - equestrian, figure skating, diving, gymnastics, etc. - where all of the judging scandals have arisen over the past few years, and each time, the only cure that they can come up with is to establish some sort of half-assed compromise in an attempt to appease pissed off athletes and world media that approaches an objective standard. “Eliminate the highest and lowest scores” (to eliminate ideological and nationalistic bias). “Eliminate the Perfect Ten” (to appease coaches who complained that their athlete is better than Olga Korbut ever was “and don’t you forget it!").
However, if you eliminate the subjective medals, I’d be willing to bet that the US manages to win more gold medals than China does. It is only in those subjective events that China’s medal count becomes so overwhelming, and to an extent that people are starting to notice, but they aren’t talking about it more than once. I hear a controversy pop up, a commentator will mention it during the event (almost in passing), and then the matter is dropped as though it had never occurred.
Any takers?