Re: Olympics
So, the latest round of Winter Olympics are over. Canada won a bunch of medals (the most ever! way to go!), successfully appealed figure skating judging weirdness, won hockey gold medals (women and men) for the first time since, well, before I was born and Russia went home in a hissy-fit (don't use drugs, then!).
Hockey
I'm not a hockey fan. I don't usually watch NHL games. I can't remember a litany of numbers from six years ago. I don't care what a draft pick is. But I watched the Olympic hockey anyway, and it was actually pretty interesting.
I probably get my citizenship revoked if I don't congratulate our hockey teams on their (Heaviest ever! In all Olympic history! Go USA!) gold medals, so: ``congratulations!''. They were well-deserved. Wayne's melodramatic press-confrenece was essentially correct: everybody except Canada appeared to want Canada to lose. Also, the women beat a mostly-undefeated US team.
But they're Professionals!
Yes, there's the whole deal about professional players in the Olympics. However, the Olympics are just a giant marketing orgy anyway, so what are a few more highly-marketed folks? Besides, what's ``professional'', anyway? If you appear in a advertisement for Joe's Widgets, are you ``professional''? After all, you're getting paid for your sport. If so, then Becky Scott (who should be the gold-medalist, probably) is a professional. Also, there's some theory that the Olympics are about the best in the world competing, so why not actually send the best?
Of course, if professional hockey players are allowed why not, uhm, professional lugers? Bobsledders? Ski-jumpers? Speed-skaters? Downhill skiers? Oh, right: there aren't any.
The Olympics give folks who participate in weird sports a venue. People who participate in non-weird sports already have venues; the Olympics is just another one. So, perhaps sports which already have other large international venues shouldn't have those athletes ``infecting'' the Olympics. Maybe the Olympics should be for athletes who wouldn't otherwise have an international venue. Carrying this argument through, though, downhill skiers who follow the world-cup shouldn't be allowed into the Olympics; they aren't really any less ``professional'' than hockey players and besides, they already have a large international competition. Maybe they don't get millions of dollars to ski, but that's just because Canadians don't pay to watch skiing.
While there are very good arguments for allowing professionals into the Olympics, I think it might be better if they weren't allowed. The chances of this actually happening are pretty low, though; how would it possibly be enforced? What is ``professional''? Why does Mike's opinion matter?
However, I think the Olympic organizers should decide unambiguously: either the Olympics are for the best in the world, or they're an amateur athlete's showcase. If the latter, clear rules on what ``professional'' should be established and enforced in all sports at the Olympics.
Either way, they're still just a marketing ploy to get lots of people to spend billions of dollars. Do they help amateur athletes? Maybe. Do we really need amateur bobsledders, though? If people want to tobbagan, then let them tobbogan. Do we really need amateur pole-vaulters? If you want to jump really high, then go ahead. If enough other people are interested in tobboganning and jumping, then you can hold competitions. If enough people want to watch, charge them money.
I'm not convinced that the Olympics is the best way to encourage (or enable) amateurs to compete in events they find fun. Would amateur sports exist without the Olympics? Absolutely. Would they receive government funding without the Olympics? If the public wants them to.
Sure, the Olympics is nice and all but it's rather too politicized at this point. What percentage is spectacle? What percentage is politics? What percentage is actually still about sports?
Politics
``I want the Olympics!''
``No I do!''
``But you abuse human rights!''
``Well, you fund and train terrorists!''
Theoretically, the city to host the Olympics is decided upon by the merits of that city. That's not good enough anymore; now we have to consider the politics of deciding about one city over another. We get to bribe people. We spend millions making splashy bids, and milking the media for all they're worth to get one bid ``in the public eye'' more than others.
We note which country judges are from.
This alone is stupid. Of course, some people say that judged events themselves are stupid. I used to agree, until it was pointed out, ``they're called Olympic games, not Olympic sports,'' which is a good point. Let's just presume that judged events are okay, if only because there have been judged events for quite a long time at the Olympics. Anyway, a judged event is no less athletic than a non-judged events; is dart-throwing more acceptable in the Olympics than gymnastics just because the former isn't judged and the latter is?
So why name where a judge is from? If they're good judges, it shouldn't matter which country they happen to live in. If they're not good judges, then they should be sent home (to France, say) in disgrace.
Here, obviously, I refer to the figure-skating action. I think the International Olympic Committee made the best decision possible by awarding two (okay, four) gold medals, but it's far less than ideal.
Ideally, they wouldn't have moronic judges in the first place. The ``solution'' proposed by the skating union isn't much better: having the judges completely unaccountable for their decisions is silly. Randomly selecting the scores would almost certainly help cut down on the propensity to cheat (because you'd need a lot more colluding to do so) but each judge's score should still be displayed (or at least recorded for later review) and they should have responsibility for their decisions. Judges who consistently rank some athletes worse (or better) than other judges should be removed.
I won't get into the actual judging criteria...
Drug Use
Some people claim that using ``drugs'' (i.e. ``banned substances'') is inherently cheating.
Well, it's not: if everyone could use any sort of drug they liked, then it would be entirely fair. The games might not be as much fun to watch, though, as people tend to value ``honest'' effort more than a cheap trick like performance-enhancing drugs. Why, though, don't people seem to get as heated up about the obvious and glaring abuse of technological differences?
Drug use could be likened to any of the other technological advances in sports: is it inherently ``unfair'' if one team can make a really aerodynamic bobsled? Sure it is; why don't all the teams use the same bobsleighs? An expensive-to-produce bobsleigh gives that team just as much an advantage as an expensive-to-produce drug might; a team from a country which can't afford to make a fast bobsleigh will lose just as certainly as a team which can't afford to develop good drugs.
Of course, I don't think drug use should be tolerated. I also think that technological differences should be minimized wherever possible. It's probably not going to work to make everyone wear the same speed-skating skin-suit or make the hockey players share skates, but the exact type of speed-skates can (and should) be controlled; when clap-skates were first being used, they provided athletes with a clear advantage which is no less ``cheating'' than using EPO.
Union Cycliste International (UCI), for example, has very strict rules about what sorts of bikes are allowed in road-races; why don't triathletes operate under the same (or similar) restrictions?
Is using a special wet-suit in a swimming event any less of a performance enhancement than using some type of drug?
Drug use at the Olympics is bad, yes, but technological enhancements in general detract from the fairness of competition.
If the IOC is really interested in stopping drug use, then the rules would be easy: get caught using a banned substance, lose all medals (if any) from that Games and never come to any more Olympics, ever. There might be room for different ``classes'' of banned-substance; while caffine is ``banned'', it's pretty easy to take accidentally. It's pretty hard to take EPO by accident.
Conclusion
Congratulations to all the athletes.
Hopefully the IOC can get its shit together at some point and stop ruining it for people who have worked really hard..