I love watching most sports and have enjoyed the Winter Olympics. I wonder if I am the only one disturbed however by how important chance seems to be in many winter events. I am particularly thinking about short track skating and snowboard cross. The Olympics should be about being the best,not the luckiest.
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Former Member
You have a few elements of chance in swimming -- getting a good draft or something like that.
Some of the Olympic timed sports are decided by fractions of fractions of seconds... if someone wins because their arms are long and they trip the clock .001 ahead of the next person, is that athleticism or just plain luck?
One of the other things I do in my spare time is participate in sheepdog trials. They're judged events, but it's still pretty obvious what is a good run and what is not. I feel that way about a lot of the Olympic judged events. Halfpipe may be a judged event, but it was pretty clear when someone had a killer run.
My favorite sports to watch are those where if you mess up, you die (with the exception of auto racing -- despite living in Indy, I just can't get into it). Those guys and gals are serious athletes. Whether they're sportsmen/sportswomen too is a moot point, as far as I'm concerned.
You have a few elements of chance in swimming -- getting a good draft or something like that.
Some of the Olympic timed sports are decided by fractions of fractions of seconds... if someone wins because their arms are long and they trip the clock .001 ahead of the next person, is that athleticism or just plain luck?
One of the other things I do in my spare time is participate in sheepdog trials. They're judged events, but it's still pretty obvious what is a good run and what is not. I feel that way about a lot of the Olympic judged events. Halfpipe may be a judged event, but it was pretty clear when someone had a killer run.
My favorite sports to watch are those where if you mess up, you die (with the exception of auto racing -- despite living in Indy, I just can't get into it). Those guys and gals are serious athletes. Whether they're sportsmen/sportswomen too is a moot point, as far as I'm concerned.
