The Future of The Olympics

[Arwon]

Look even the Atlantic is wise to the Olympics:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/ban-the-olympics/553250/?utm_source=atlfb

The olympic games causing the Crimean situation, the Vancouver housing bubble and the long term squeeze of Australian state health and education budgets is really galaxy brain territory tbh.

It is my real and very honest question every two years: What are the Olympics good for? Why do we continue to have them? Certainly for the athletes participating they can represent the pinnacle of a career worth of hard work; maybe even a life’s ambition realized. But for the rest of us, what is the point? Aside from the temporary flash of sumptuous spectacle, there’s little good that ever comes of the Games. If anything, they exacerbate some of the worst of human nature

We get it - you don't like sport, well done. But "nothing but temporary spectacle" is an argument against nearly everything humans do. Watching and getting invested in sport is as good a way of pushing the boulder up the hill as any.

 

[Commodore]

But "nothing but temporary spectacle" is an argument against nearly everything humans do.

But most other things humans do for entertainment don't have the same cost as something like the Olympics do.

Personally, I think it would be best to just pick a single venue to hold the Olympics every time and be done with this whole mess. That would reduce the negative economic impact the games have. I would make that venue Koforidua, Ghana since that seems to be the closest major city to one of the two intersections of the equator and the prime meridian.

 

[Arwon]

I can't think of any significant form of human distraction which can't be characterised as a massive misallocation of resources by the standards being laid out here. There is, after all, no ethical consumption under capitalism and virtually every dollar we spend could have done other more virtuous use.

I think sport gets a weird focus even though the dollar values are quite relatively small just because it's so visible. Real Madrid are the biggest sport club in the world but they still turn over a fraction of the revenue (ie about 800m a year) of a medium-sized company in pretty much any other industry. Even the IOC and FIFA are modest operations compared to say a supermarket chain, let alone any area of national policy.

Edit: Which I think also explains why so much of sport administration is low key shambolic or outright crooked. It's the same issue with low stakes and cosy internal relationships that characterise any number of small bikkies institutions, from local government to higher education faculties to many parts of the entertainment world. They're not places with rigidly enforced meritocratic processes and impartial ethical oversight. They're often hotbeds of clubbiness, graft, hiring your mates, dumb feuds, gossip, and people who are just plain bad at their jobs but entrenched nonetheless.

 

[AdrienIer]

The olympics still need to work on some things. That the decision of who organizes the olympics is corrupt is one thing. But that the president of the Canadian skating federation gets to be a judge in the ice skating competition, where the Canadian couple won by a very slim margin, is completely nuts. Perhaps they deserve their victory, but looking at the score she gave them it looks like cheating.

Edit : Apparently the French judge also gave surprising scores, favoring the french couple who came in second. Which only reinforces the fact that something needs to be done about having corrupt judges in the olympics.

 

[Hrothbern]

The olympics still need to work on some things. That the decision of who organizes the olympics is corrupt is one thing. But that the president of the Canadian skating federation gets to be a judge in the ice skating competition, where the Canadian couple won by a very slim margin, is completely nuts. Perhaps they deserve their victory, but looking at the score she gave them it looks like cheating.

Edit : Apparently the French judge also gave surprising scores, favoring the french couple who came in second. Which only reinforces the fact that something needs to be done about having corrupt judges in the olympics.

Something solid needs to be done... also because of increased match-fixing, especially those sports where juries/referees are involved like also boxing, judo, etc

The increased wealth in Asia adding an army of gamblers to the stage.

From: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/05/world/asia/china-soccer-gambling/index.html

Europol's revelations that hundreds of matches have been fixed may have hit the industry in Europe, but will come as no surprise in soccer betting-crazy China. Declan Hill, in his 2008 book on match-fixing, The Fix, quoted "a recent study for the American journal Foreign Policy [that] estimated the entire Asian gambling industry, both legal and illegal, at $450 billion a year.

 

[AdrienIer]

Compare judges 2 and 6...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The olympics still need to work on some things. That the decision of who organizes the olympics is corrupt is one thing. But that the president of the Canadian skating federation gets to be a judge in the ice skating competition, where the Canadian couple won by a very slim margin, is completely nuts. Perhaps they deserve their victory, but looking at the score she gave them it looks like cheating.

Edit : Apparently the French judge also gave surprising scores, favoring the french couple who came in second. Which only reinforces the fact that something needs to be done about having corrupt judges in the olympics.

And what mistakes did the couple make that leads you to conclude that they didn't deserve the gold medal?

This isn't like the Salt Lake Olympics when the judges' cheating was as obvious as a neon billboard; Canada's pairs team skated flawlessly and came in 2nd, while the female half of the Russian team had a very noticeable fall... and their team came in 1st.

After an investigation it was discovered that there were several judges who had decided that the Russian team would win, no matter what. Corruption is also what kept the Canadian ice dancing team of Bourne & Kraatz off the podium; their skating should have resulted in a bronze medal at least, but an inferior team was slotted ahead of them.

The result of the investigation was that the Canadian pairs were awarded their gold medals in a later ceremony... but the Russian pairs were allowed to keep their unearned gold medals. They should have been stripped of their medals, rather than be rewarded for a performance that didn't merit gold.

 

[AdrienIer]

And what mistakes did the couple make that leads you to conclude that they didn't deserve the gold medal?

1) I never said they didn't deserve it.
2) They came in 2nd for the second program, so despite not making mistakes it wouldn't have been particularly weird if they came in second overall. Nor is it weird in itself that they came in first.

The only point here is that it's awful for the olympics that biased judges are allowed to officiate, as it makes the results dubious (especially with only 0.79 points in difference between the gold and silver). Who knows what the result would have been if there had only been fair judges ? Perhaps they'd have won but we'll never know.

 

[Lexicus]

The olympic games causing the Crimean situation, the Vancouver housing bubble and the long term squeeze of Australian state health and education budgets is really galaxy brain territory tbh.

LOL I didn't even really read the article, just noted the headline. I wouldn't be surprised if the Atlantic is making bad arguments about that, because you don't really such much anti-capitalist analysis in the Atlantic, though you do occasionally.

We get it - you don't like sport, well done. But "nothing but temporary spectacle" is an argument against nearly everything humans do. Watching and getting invested in sport is as good a way of pushing the boulder up the hill as any.

I actually do like sport. I engaged in sport for a long time and it was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. What I don't like, typically, are pro sports that serve as wealth-siphons. It's true that there's nothing inherent about sport in general or the Olympics in particular that lends itself to hypercapitalist extraction though.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

1) I never said they didn't deserve it.
2) They came in 2nd for the second program, so despite not making mistakes it wouldn't have been particularly weird if they came in second overall. Nor is it weird in itself that they came in first.

The only point here is that it's awful for the olympics that biased judges are allowed to officiate, as it makes the results dubious (especially with only 0.79 points in difference between the gold and silver). Who knows what the result would have been if there had only been fair judges ? Perhaps they'd have won but we'll never know.

You appear to assume that judges are automatically going to give perfect marks to skaters from their own country. I've seen plenty of instances where a judge from Country A gave top marks to skaters from Country B, because the skaters from Country B were simply more skilled and creative than the skaters from Country A.

Scoring in figure skating is complicated, and a lot different now from when I used to watch it regularly in the late '80s, '90s, and early '00s. But after the corrupt judging situation was finally, definitively exposed at the Salt Lake City games, the whole scoring system was changed and some of the judges were turfed. The ISU is more vigilant nowadays regarding corrupt judging.

 

[AdrienIer]

Have you seen the scores above ? The Canadian judge (judge 2) is the only one which gave better scores to the canadian couple. On the other hand judge 6 (the french one) was too harsh on the canadians. I don't even blame the judges, the temptation is huge to help the people you know. I blame the organization for letting them be judges in the first place. Imagine a world cup final where the referee is from one of the two finalist countries. Even if the referee tries to do his best it's going to be a mess.

 

[Arwon]

I have reservations about whether anyone has really yet worked out how to run the judging on sports with an expert judge scores

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Have you seen the scores above ? The Canadian judge (judge 2) is the only one which gave better scores to the canadian couple. On the other hand judge 6 (the french one) was too harsh on the canadians. I don't even blame the judges, the temptation is huge to help the people you know. I blame the organization for letting them be judges in the first place. Imagine a world cup final where the referee is from one of the two finalist countries. Even if the referee tries to do his best it's going to be a mess.

I didn't even see their long program. I'll have to look it up; CBC should have it on video, or maybe it's on YouTube by now (prefer YT as CBC has a ton of obnoxious ads in their videos).

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I didn't even see their long program. I'll have to look it up; CBC should have it on video, or maybe it's on YouTube by now (prefer YT as CBC has a ton of obnoxious ads in their videos).

Oddly enough, viewing the program itself isn't required in order to look at the scores.

I have reservations about whether anyone has really yet worked out how to run the judging on sports with an expert judge scores

I think skiing does quite well, as does diving. The simple "throw out the top and bottom scores" takes care of any bias that shows up in a particular judge with a particular participant.

 

[Hrothbern]

I have reservations about whether anyone has really yet worked out how to run the judging on sports with an expert judge scores

The same way you treat as scientist measurements with a high randomiser of unknown or uncontrollable source:
I you measure for example 10 times the value for a certain combination of factors you kick out the freak values or the highest and lowest, etc.

Applied to the Olympics:
Just kicking out the highest and lowest two values and increase the number of judges with 4 would improve things.
You diminish chaufinistic effects and bribing for the match-fixing is going to need minimum 3 bribes to get effect

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The same way you treat as scientist measurements with a high randomiser of unknown or uncontrollable source:
I you measure for example 10 times the value for a certain combination of factors you kick out the freak values or the highest and lowest, etc.

Applied to the Olympics:
Just kicking out the highest and lowest two values and increase the number of judges with 4 would improve things.
You diminish chaufinistic effects and bribing for the match-fixing is going to need minimum 3 bribes to get effect

You said it better, but I said it faster. I wonder how the judges would score our performances?

 

[Akka]

Contrarian hot take: Trying to determine which country "wins" the Olympics using a scheme tied to medal count is completely antithetical to the spirit upon which the modern games were founded.

We probably do put way too much emphasis on the national competition in the Olympics and not enough on the individual competition. It's not a World Cup.

If nothing else it leads to dumb jingoistic coverage.

Well, the spirit upon which the modern games were founded is completely antithetical to the spirit upon which the old ones happened (which was heavily nationalistic AFAIR), so I guess we're just going back to the root

Jokes aside, I'm a nationalist but I'm well aware of the dirty side of nationalism.
If sports can channel the most chauvinist tendencies in a somewhat respectful frame, it's a pretty good replacement for war. We get the group "us vs them" human need without the bloodshed, and with mindless entertainment and peer pressure to behave to boot, that's a good deal.

 

[Hrothbern]

You said it better, but I said it faster. I wonder how the judges would score our performances?

Smile...

With this post you are now both faster and more eloquent as I could be

 

[AdrienIer]

I didn't even see their long program. I'll have to look it up; CBC should have it on video, or maybe it's on YouTube by now (prefer YT as CBC has a ton of obnoxious ads in their videos).

Oddly enough, viewing the program itself isn't required in order to look at the scores.

Well yeah, all the other judges thought the Canadians did the second best long program, except the Canadian judge.
Either way the french lost on the short program, because of that dress falling off. But the mere fact that biased judges are allowed in is problematic.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I have now seen the program (necessary to get the context of what you're complaining about). Personally it doesn't do anything for me, but the judges obviously found merit in it.

Keep in mind that judging the technical merits of a figure skating program means looking at details that escape the average viewer.

The artistic side of such programs is a subjective thing, true; there was controversy back in the '80s when the French team of Paul and Isabelle Duschenay had some very different kinds of ice dancing programs at the '88 Olympics. They were technically competent, but their brand of creativity didn't sit well with the more traditional-minded judges. In later years the ice dancing judging loosened up more until it got to the point where the pendulum swung back to making sure that the free dances still had to conform to certain technical requirements.

I didn't see the French team's programs so I'm unaware of what the costume issue was. But keep in mind that costuming is definitely considered in the judging. There are certain requirements, and one of them is that "wardrobe malfunctions" should not happen - from a technical standpoint, artistic standpoint, and I would assume a safety standpoint as well. This is one of the reasons the skaters aren't allowed to use props in competition (compare Philippe Candeloro's "Three Musketeers" program between competition and gala; in competition he mimes the swordplay in the footwork section and when presenting the program in a gala he uses a real fencing sword).