If I am reading this right, Swiminfo.com is reporting that Craig Stevens is indeed going to back out of the 400 and leave it up to Australia Swimming to "pick another member of the Olympic Team" to swim that race in Athens. If I am ANY other country, swimmer, the 3rd place finisher at the Trials or an organization interested in ethics, then I am raising a stink on this one!!!! Thorpe DQ'd and the Aussies are going to skirt the rule and get him in anyway. They would be relegated to the status of Ben Johnson, Rosie Ruiz, and the 60+% of MLB who are on steriods! This is FREAKIN' UNBELIEVABLE. I have no respect for any of the aforementioned and if this happens, none for Ian Thorpe and the Australian swim federation (or whatever official name they hide behind) are in that seeming, stinking pile.
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Originally posted by aquageek
I have yet to understand why there is such resistance.
It is because, in the US, we are overly legalistic and bound to rules. We care less about whether something is fair than whether a rule was broken. Someone makes an error in his taxes and loses his home to a technicality? Too bad, he should have followed the rules. A law is causing people to lose their jobs? Oh well, we can't help the loss of their jobs until we change the rule.
I once read an essay about this subject that compared Britain's legal system and that of the US. The author argued that the British put more emphasis on what was right and fair than on whether the rules were followed to the letter. He claimed that British judges had more leeway (and propensity) to rule based upon the spirit of the law, whereas American judges had to rule based upon the letter of the law. The author pointed to our written Constitution as a source of our love for written legalities.
Personally, I think it comes down to responsibility. When you have rules you can hide behind, you don't have to take responsibility for tough choices. "Sure, it's sad, but there's nothing I can do! I'm bound by the law!" I frequently encounter this attitude here in Washington, where government workers seem to thrive on creating "policy" and hiding behind it.
It doesn't surprise me that we would have people wanting to make the Olympics more about rules than the spirit of the thing.
Originally posted by kaelonj
No law / rule has been broken by the Aussie swim federation in choosing Thorpe, they are free to choose whoever they want to swim. But this choice would discredit the whole idea of having a qualifying /trials meet.
If the purpose of the trials is to select the best athletes, then having the best athlete barred from his best event over a technicality would discredit the trials even more. If the trials aren't going to result in the best athletes attending, then they fail their purpose.
The choice of which you speak doesn't discredit the trials, but the disqualification rule that caused this problem in the first place. In most instances the trials work fine and serve their purpose. In the case where they didn't, luckily the Aussies have enough common sense to fix the problem.
On the question "swimmer" had about why they sought a legal opinion on their rules, it's precisely to head off a legal challenge against choosing Thorpe. They knew what they needed to do; they just had to find the legal language to explain the action, so that if some other swimmer tries to sue for a spot on the team, they can defend that suit.
Originally posted by aquageek
I have yet to understand why there is such resistance.
It is because, in the US, we are overly legalistic and bound to rules. We care less about whether something is fair than whether a rule was broken. Someone makes an error in his taxes and loses his home to a technicality? Too bad, he should have followed the rules. A law is causing people to lose their jobs? Oh well, we can't help the loss of their jobs until we change the rule.
I once read an essay about this subject that compared Britain's legal system and that of the US. The author argued that the British put more emphasis on what was right and fair than on whether the rules were followed to the letter. He claimed that British judges had more leeway (and propensity) to rule based upon the spirit of the law, whereas American judges had to rule based upon the letter of the law. The author pointed to our written Constitution as a source of our love for written legalities.
Personally, I think it comes down to responsibility. When you have rules you can hide behind, you don't have to take responsibility for tough choices. "Sure, it's sad, but there's nothing I can do! I'm bound by the law!" I frequently encounter this attitude here in Washington, where government workers seem to thrive on creating "policy" and hiding behind it.
It doesn't surprise me that we would have people wanting to make the Olympics more about rules than the spirit of the thing.
Originally posted by kaelonj
No law / rule has been broken by the Aussie swim federation in choosing Thorpe, they are free to choose whoever they want to swim. But this choice would discredit the whole idea of having a qualifying /trials meet.
If the purpose of the trials is to select the best athletes, then having the best athlete barred from his best event over a technicality would discredit the trials even more. If the trials aren't going to result in the best athletes attending, then they fail their purpose.
The choice of which you speak doesn't discredit the trials, but the disqualification rule that caused this problem in the first place. In most instances the trials work fine and serve their purpose. In the case where they didn't, luckily the Aussies have enough common sense to fix the problem.
On the question "swimmer" had about why they sought a legal opinion on their rules, it's precisely to head off a legal challenge against choosing Thorpe. They knew what they needed to do; they just had to find the legal language to explain the action, so that if some other swimmer tries to sue for a spot on the team, they can defend that suit.
