The Winter Olympics. Okay guys and gals I've going put on my curmudgeon hat for a while. At breakfast Saturday, Lyle said he thought a lot of the Olympic events were just vacation sports. They are what the old European aristocracy did on their vacations - the bobsled, skiing, luge, etc. Going down the hill feet-first on a sled isn't a sport even if you do it fast and call it the luge. What are there, 50 serious lugers in the world? Or then go head-first and call it the skeleton. We have another 50 of those. Tops. Maybe we need a competition in shinny. You don't know what it is? Well, you wouldn't know what the luge was except the upper class old boys decided to give each other medals for it. Then last night my brother-in-law called. It was great to talk to him. His take is that it isn't a "sport" unless a ball is involved or you can measure time or distance. Pretty good definition. (For our purposes I think we can consider a puck or a curling stone a "ball".) Anything that is subjective and has judges, may be entertaining, even beautiful and require great skill, but has no place in the Olympics. It's not sport. I'm sorry, ice dancing and figure skating, when I rule the world you're out. And for chrissake the biathlon belongs in military games, not the Olympics. Thank you all for listening. I feel better now. I gotta go, women's curling is on.
5 comments:
..."Anything that is subjective and has judges, may be entertaining, even beautiful and require great skill, but has no place in the Olympics."
..."It isn't a "sport" unless a ball is involved or you can measure time or distance."
Wrestling is out, then?
Best,
Rick Moffat
Good point. I suspect the definition is complete nonsense and should be treated as such.
This has always been one of my favorite "three beer discussons"..the defining of a "Sport" vs. a Pastime, Hobby, Stunt, etc.. The best I can offer is; If you get worse at it the drunker you get...it's a Sport!
Best,
Rick
Kind of off topic, but the other night I watch the "America's Cup" highlights on MainSail on CNNi. What kind of "race" has that evolved into? Two multi-billion dollar boats owned the two of the richest men in the world. Cool technology on that USA boat, but PU! I like sailing (my "sailboat" is a Klepper Aerius II kayak with a sailkit), but lets see some "affordable" technology trickle down to the working class boats!
Winter Games? The most entertaining event I've seen so far was the snowboard-cross. That was cool!
I'm all for adding cyclo-cross as a winter Olympic sport.
Well Gunnar has the bike for it. Bunnar dig out the "Coldnago".
You'll get a gold medal!
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