Olympic Review #3: The Backlash

My elimination of diving as a "sport" has seemingly bristled a few. If I had to hazard a guess, I would imagine it's due to the fact that it presumes that some other far more popular sports may also be on the cutting block. In order to go ahead and address those issues, I thought I'd pick and choose some of the sports I consider to fall in or near the category of Subjective Exhibition.

Before I get there, though, I feel a little more clarification is required as to my issues with subjectivity in sports. My issue is not with subjectivity as a whole. I understand there are subjective decisions made in almost every type of event. Would the receiver have come down inbounds if he hadn't been pushed? When the guy gets knocked to the ground in basketball, was the defender trying to make a move for the ball, or was it an intentional foul? These are all, in there nature, subjective questions; however, there are big differences between those and diving. First of all, while those rules may be subjectively enforced, the scoring isn't. A touchdown is worth 6 points, a free throw is worth 1 point, a rugby try is worth 4 points, and so on. In diving, you don't know how much anything is worth. If my legs come apart an inch before I hit the water, one judge may think that's worth 0.5 points off, while another may think that's worth 0.72 points, and a third doesn't care, because the rest of my form was perfect. If you can't come up with the same score by watching at home, than that's NOT a sport. Sorry! How can it be a fair and impartial competition -- which, when you think about it, is the cornerstone of sports -- when two guys can do the exact same think and get different scores? Complain all you want, but I'm not budging on this.

Now, as far as the example I provided from football and basketball, there's another key difference. While the application of the rules may be subjective, the rule itself is not. That is, if a receiver is pushed out of bounds, but would have come down inbounds otherwise, that is a catch. If you make a move for the ball, that is, by definition, NOT an intentional foul. Do humans use subjectivity to apply the rule? Sure - that's only logical. But let's bring the same to synchronized swimming, shall we? Synchronized swimmers are supposed to be uniform in appearance; however, that's not clearly defined, is it? Judge A thinks one woman's hair is much too longer than another, and she takes off 0.2 points. Judge B thinks the girls are the same height, build, have matching outfits, and operated in complete unison, so he gives them a bonus 0.5 points for being uniform. Who's right? Who's wrong? No idea ... and no one can tell me, either. I don't object to subjective interpretation, that's just a part of having humans judge an event. What I object to is a set of rules that are so vague that the core of the sport itself is up to interpretation.

So, now that everyone is completely bored with that treatise, let's look at the next few events:

Gymnastics: Do I like gymnastics? No. Does it annoy me? Yes. Does that impact my determination on this? Maybe. My point, however, is there must be standards, and gymnastics doesn't come close. If you pick the wrong music for your floor exercise, you get points off ... unless a particular judge likes the music, and then you get points awarded to you. Seriously? Music selection is a criterion? If that's the case, wouldn't American Idol be a sport. Hell no! I don't even consider it a TV program (but that's a separate complaint). I'm sorry, all you Mary-Lou-Retton-Kerri-Strug-Olga-Korbut spandex fans out there, but: VERDICT: NOT A SPORT

Boxing: So a friend of mine challenged me with boxing as a test case. I believe the exact statement was, in part, "you'd say that boxing is a sport if a guy gets knocked out, but not if it goes to a decision because of the arbitrary scoring involved." In professional boxing, I'd have to agree with him. The way professional boxing is scored is ludicrous. Each round is scored by "who won the round," with no clear determination as to what the hell that means. It's one of the reasons that boxing is so ridiculous. How many fights have you seen that you KNOW the wrong guy was awarded the fight? But do you have any objective criteria that you can make your argument? Know. The judge's opinion is just as valid as yours, so both decisions are valid.

Ah, but here's the tricky part ... we're talking about Olympic boxing. Olympic boxing has a very defined scoring system. Every judge is essentially counting how many punches are landed - and there's even a definition as to what "landed" means. The scores vary between judge to judge, but that's only because in boxing it's easy to miss a punch or for two people to disagree as to whether a punch landed or not. All of that, though, is just subjectivity in the application of the rules, not in the rules themselves.

All that to say that yes, by my definitions, professional boxing wouldn't make the cut, but Olympic boxing is A-OK! VERDICT: IT'S A SPORT

Rhythmic Gymnastics: Even all the girls and women who fawn over gymnastics ... even THEY think rhythmic gymnastics is a joke. Each competitor uses five "apparatuses" while dancing around. The five props are: a rope, a hula hoop, a ball, bowling pins, and a ribbon on a stick. That's not a sport ... it's a weird interpretive dance recital. Obviously, the rules are just as ridiculously objective as real gymnastics, so: VERDICT: NOT A SPORT

Judo: Judo has judges, just like boxing. Just like Olympic boxing, though, there's a set score system. Now, it's complicated, and apparently requires you to have The Glow to understand it, but it is objective. My only complaint is that they award 2 bronze medals for every weight class. How BS is that? They can't just have them fight it out to decide who gets the last medal? That's one step above giving 4th and 5th place medals. This isn't the West Elementary Field Day, it's the Olympics - ONE bronze medal! Besides that, though: VERDICT: IT'S A SPORT

Archery: There's no subjectivity in archery, so that's not an issue; however, there's a little bit of a concern for me considering that everyone brings personalized equipment. Is someone from backwoods Mongolia competing with a $70 wooden bow with cat gut strings on the same level with the American with a $1,000 fiberglass-composite bow? Probably not, but the litmus test is whether the best archer in the world could win with poor equipment, or would a horrible archer have a chance with the best bow ever. When I think about it in those terms, the archer is far more important than the bow. VERDICT: IT'S A SPORT

Well, I think we've done enough for today. This brings our grand total to 26 medal events eliminated, while keeping 61 of them. Next time, I'll try to knock a large chunk of these out, so this poor idea for a blog series can end shortly.

Until next time,
The Jim