Text 19985, 121 rader
Skriven 2008-08-22 19:16:12 av Jeff Smith (1:14/5)
  Kommentar till text 19831 av Ward Dossche (1:14/5)
Ärende: The Games
=================
Hello Ward.

18 Aug 08 03:32, I wrote to you:

 JS> Hello Ward.

 JS> 18 Aug 08 07:16, you wrote to Lee Lofaso:

 WD>> Lee,

 LL>>> "The timing system says it all.  There hasn't really been an
 LL>>> error in the timing system that I've ever heard of.  The
 LL>>> scoreboard said I got my hand on the wall first." - Michael
 LL>>> Phelps, the greatest Olympic Champion of all time

 WD>> Is someone complaining? Or do the newsservices have not enough
 WD>> stuff to report about and invent things? Here there's nothing.

 WD>> It's quite easy in swimming: he/she who touches the timing device
 WD>> at the end of the lane first is the winner. Touching the wall is
 WD>> not enough. The Serbian guy was faster, Phelps timed his arrival
 WD>> better. He won. End of story.

 JS>     Agreed. I saw no problem with Phelps being the winner. It was
 JS> visually clear what happened. The other athlete was ahead but coasted
 JS> the last body length or so while Phelps was still in mid stroke and
 JS> traveling faster. The result being that Phelps touched the sensing
 JS> device a fraction of a second sooner.

 JS>     In fact it was close enough that if Phelps had come in second I
 JS> wouldn't have seen any reason to complain. As long as he did his best
 JS> that is all that can be expected. Regardless of who wins.

 WD>> And personally attributing titles like "the greatest" is
 WD>> comparing apples with oranges.

 JS>      Umm... According to who? When? Where? IOW, it's only a label.

 WD>> You are discounting people like Al Oerter winning gold in the
 WD>> discus during 4 consecutive games, or Paavo Nurmi, Emil Zatopek
 WD>> or Carl Lewis.

 WD>> Winning a pile of medals is something, but being an Olympian is
 WD>> something else. Look at the limited list of people who got the
 WD>> "Pierre de Coubertin Medal". Lutz never won a gold but he
 WD>> sacrificed his own chances in the long jump in 1936 by coaching
 WD>> Owens getting through the qualifiers. Now 'that' is something.

      The Olympics should be about the athletes. Not about the
Olympics politics, or any particular or group of countries. Or
companies with sponsorship or comercial interests.


 WD>> Apart from that, the swimming event is totally different from
 WD>> track and field to name just that. It is impossible to win 8 of
 WD>> the
 WD>> following: 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 5000m, 10000m, 4x100m,
 WD>> 4x200m and 4x400m. At best an athlete these days can have a shot
 WD>> at the 4 shortest but 100, 200 and 400 e.g. are already a nono.

     Yes, there are differances between the various sports. But one
increasing concern in some of the sports is the judging. As the games
have progressed the poor judging has become more obvious. Tonight for
example I was watching a boxing match between two European athletes.
Both athletes were landing punches and doing an equal amount of holding.
But the judges only seemed to be able to see the punches of one of the
athletes. An occurance that has become common during these Olympics.
In this particular contest the referee penalized one athlete a total
of 4 points for holding which cost him the match and a olympic medal.
The other athlete who was holding just as much didn't get penalized at
all. The athletes need to be responsible for their actions but their
actions and their performance in events should be judged equally and
fairly.

     It has become hard to watch fighters' going for what they believe
is the chance of their life, and then seeing the poorly judged results
of their efforts pop up on the tv screen as such a low score.

     Now if we look at gymnastics there are also concerns. Take the tie
breaker between Liukin and the Chinese girl, how in the world was that
judged? I don't have a real problem with the way the tie was broken,
because that was established by the IOC prior to the games. My issue was
with the scores that put them in a tie in the first place. Liukin's routine
was better and should have gotten the gold medal scores outright. Again
I don't claim any particular gymnastic knowledge. But when a lehman can
see an athlete with a better performance end up losing. It makes one
wonder. I am not suprized that China has aquired the most gold medals.
That I think was a reasonable expectation. With gymnastics it seems
that the judges get so caught up in evaluating the contests that they
don't sit back and see the contest as a whole. Unlike some of the other
sports, with gymnastics there isn't the ability for judges to say there
was a goal scored or not. Yes there are many areas where the judging and scores
need to be subjective. However, I now think that the judges need to
have judges who judge the scoring before it is posted. I realize that it
sounds redundant but during this Olympic competition it seems to have been
definitely needed.

    I have seen tragedies in judging before and it hasn't gotten any better
with this new judging system. There certainly shouldn't be any person sitting
as a judge if they have not been thoroughly checked out in their ability to
score accurately. But to see athletes executing their routines perfectly and
then see the judging of one person over another so unfairly on the same skill
is just hard to watch. Many of the athletes have worked for years and given
far too much to be judged so poorly as competitors.


 WD>>  \%/@rd

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 WD>> (2:292/854)

 JS> Jeff

 JS> --- GoldED+/W32-MINGW 1.1.5-b20070503
 JS>  * Origin: Twin_Cities_Metronet - region14.us (1:14/5)

Jeff

--- GoldED+/W32-MINGW 1.1.5-b20070503
 * Origin: Twin_Cities_Metronet - region14.us (1:14/5)