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.
I think curling looks like an absolute blast! I haven't tried it yet but plan to. I don't think it's boring at all.
I disagree with the Wetzel column about figure skating, but I see where he's coming from. Judged sports are just so different from a sport like swimming it's difficult for us to understand them sometimes. But does that make them not sports? Not in my mind.
Speaking of figure skating, I think the new scoring system at least helps things somewhat. It is far, far from perfect but it does attempt to quantify a program rather than just resort to a judge saying "I liked this skater better than that skater" which the old system did. The problem is there is still lots of leeway for the judges to boost the scores of their personal favorites. I think that's just part of skating that will never go away.
The new scoring came in as a result of the judging scandal at the 2002 Games. The irony is, under the new system, the judges' scores are all anonymous! Only in skating would the solution to corrupt judging be to make the scores anonymous. :rolleyes:
I think curling looks like an absolute blast! I haven't tried it yet but plan to. I don't think it's boring at all.
I disagree with the Wetzel column about figure skating, but I see where he's coming from. Judged sports are just so different from a sport like swimming it's difficult for us to understand them sometimes. But does that make them not sports? Not in my mind.
Speaking of figure skating, I think the new scoring system at least helps things somewhat. It is far, far from perfect but it does attempt to quantify a program rather than just resort to a judge saying "I liked this skater better than that skater" which the old system did. The problem is there is still lots of leeway for the judges to boost the scores of their personal favorites. I think that's just part of skating that will never go away.
The new scoring came in as a result of the judging scandal at the 2002 Games. The irony is, under the new system, the judges' scores are all anonymous! Only in skating would the solution to corrupt judging be to make the scores anonymous. :rolleyes:
