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| The Winter Olympic Games at Sochi, Russia 2014 |
I don’t enjoy some of the Olympic winter games. Team ice dancing, snowboarding or free-style
snowshoeing hold no interest to me. (There
is no free-style snowshoeing.)
I find downhill skiing, luge, and even curling to be much
more interesting.
What? You’d rather
watch people sweep the ice to get better glide from a large metal puck, than
beautiful women and handsome men gracefully moving over ice while performing
feats of strength and impeccable timing?
Yes, I would. I’d
rather watch a Biathlon or even plain cross-country skiing events than snowboarding.
It’s because many of the winter Olympic events aren’t
sports.
Here’s my list:
Sports
- Alpine Skiing
- Biathlon
- Bobsleigh
- Ice Hockey
- Cross Country Skiing
- Curling
- Luge
- Nordic Combined
- Short Track Speed Skating
- Skeleton
- Ski Jumping
- Speed skating
Non-sports
- Freestyle Skiing
- Snowboarding
- Figure skating
What makes the difference?
Am I one of those guys that figures a sport has to
have a ball? The only thing close to a
ball in my list above is curling and that’s like ice bowling with brooms.
Do I need speed?
The rush of air past my face from hurling down a mountain or do I need a
chase like in speed skating? No, that’s
not it either.
Let’s sharpen the edge of this monologue and cut
to the core. Sports don’t have style
points.
It’s that simple.
Pick any conventional sport: baseball, soccer, American football,
golf. It doesn’t matter if it’s a team
event or a single person. The winner is
determined by total points. In golf low
score wins; in bull's-eye shooting it’s high score. The scoring is direct and measurable. There are no style points.
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| Do you gain or lose points because the arms are bent differently? |
Style points?
What do you think is happening when the judges award scores on whether
they thought your toes were pointed sufficiently or deduct points because your
back was arched too much? Those are
style points.
Yes, I believe figure skaters and freestyle snowboarders
are athletes.
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| Speed skaters. You can tell who's in first and who's in last place. In fact if they did this one person at a time you know the winner by the best time for the event. Or do you think that number 18 should lose points cause she has to touch the ice and number 14 doesn't? |
There’s no question about
that. I’m not sure you could claim the
two middle people on a 4-man bob-sled team are athletes. Seems to me all they need to know is how to
quickly fold their bodies around the other team mates and have a low center of
gravity. I don’t see them or curlers out
doing 10-mile runs or bench presses to stay in shape. But I could be wrong on that.
You don’t have to have a league or a stadium/arena
to have a sport. You don’t have to have
followers. You do have to have measurable results, not opinions.
I used to fence with a foil. Who the heck follows fencing now a days? I would if it was on TV.
You had five judges to score hits or touches as
they say. The competitors were supposed
to own up to feeling a touch. What made
that subjective activity a sport was three touches won the match. Nobody got style points for a loud appel, a flamboyant
balstra, or graceful riposte. You got
points and won by countering your opponent’s defense and offense and scoring three
touches in the target zone before they did.
Then what are these events if not sports?
They are performance art.
It’s not the costumes, the music or
rehearsals. It’s the scoring. Anytime you have judges tell you the timing of
the performers was off, or a leg wasn’t fully extended, or the 360 revolution
was too high, you have an art form.
You want further proof? I've got it.
Anytime you have compulsory movements, you have an
art. I’ve never been to a martial arts
event where the contestants were required to do a front leg sweep or reverse
punch. You did that stuff for determining
rank/belts, but competition was always decided on points scored by hits.
Could the Swan Lake ballet be a sport? By the Olympic standards, yes. You have a limited time to perform, there are
compulsory moves, and the performers have a variety of costumes and are
evaluated on style points. The
performers are beyond a doubt athletes.
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| Tremendous performance, but did they get all the style points possible or are her legs crossed too high, his hand too closed? And how do you compare that to last year's performance in front of different judges? |
But truly, would you consider Swan Lake a sport?
