TIL: Today I Learned

[Commodore]

It might be valid, but resorting to unsporting tactics such as diving for the line when you're not playing rugby rather cedes the moral victory to the person you just denied the actual victory.

How is it unsporting though? If those who made the rules felt diving for the finish line were an unsportsmanlike move, they would have made it against the rules to do so.

She couldn't beat her opponent physically, so she outsmarted her opponent. Since athletic competitions are all about testing natural abilities, I would say using your intelligence to compensate for any physical shortcomings is still well within the spirit of athletic competition as long as no rules are actually being broken.

 

[Zkribbler]

Running experts on social media are opining she fell. They further state, the fastest way across the finish line is to lean forward. Diving is counter productive.

 

[Arakhor]

How is it unsporting though? If those who made the rules felt diving for the finish line were an unsportsmanlike move, they would have made it against the rules to do so.

Well, it's apparently not against the rules for the crowd to repeatedly boo athletes, yet people are justifiably angry/upset about it.

 

[Commodore]

Well, it's apparently not against the rules for the crowd to repeatedly boo athletes, yet people are justifiably angry/upset about it.

That's not a good analogy though. It is completely unrelated to the issue we are discussing.

I'm asking why you feel what she did was unsportsmanlike conduct when it was completely within the bounds of the established rules of the competition? The purpose of these games is to win, and she did everything she could legally do to win. In my eyes that makes her a good competitor and someone who should be held up as a role model because she refused to give up and still won without cheating.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, it might be legal, but I feel that if it's a running race, you should be on your feet when you win.

 

[Snerk]

I'm asking why you feel what she did was unsportsmanlike conduct when it was completely within the bounds of the established rules of the competition? The purpose of these games is to win, and she did everything she could legally do to win. In my eyes that makes her a good competitor and someone who should be held up as a role model because she refused to give up and still won without cheating.

On the whole I agree. But I think you can argue that some gentlemen/gentlewoman's agreement for how to conduct your sport can be in place even in a highly competitive environment. So that every way of breaking the rules doesn't have to be specified in a 800 page rulebook. And leaping across the finish line can never be a normalised as a finisher because the risk of injury is too great on that kind of surface. So perhaps not unsportsmanlike, but definitely stretching it a little.

 

[Kyriakos]

Pushing your torso forward in the race's finish line was/is definitely standard practice in the modern olympics (not sure about the ancient ones). But making a dramatic jump/fall imo doesn't look good, and yes, Snerk has a point about moves which can never be standardised and thus when they appear they are sort of a peculiarity/oddity

 

[Commodore]

On the whole I agree. But I think you can argue that some gentlemen/gentlewoman's agreement for how to conduct your sport can be in place even in a highly competitive environment. So that every way of breaking the rules doesn't have to be specified in a 800 page rulebook. And leaping across the finish line can never be a normalised as a finisher because the risk of injury is too great on that kind of surface. So perhaps not unsportsmanlike, but definitely stretching it a little.

Who said anything about it becoming normalized? This move has only been used twice in modern Olympic history that I'm aware of. That shows that runners recognize this is a last resort type move that is only used in desperate circumstances.

 

[Snerk]

Sure but I'm saying that sometimes when something can't be normalised, it shouldn't be done. In this case it could encourage runners to use the dive manoeuvre in desperate situations (which arise pretty often in that sport), which would again increase the risk of an injury happening.

 

[Commodore]

Sure but I'm saying that sometimes when something can't be normalised, it shouldn't be done. In this case it could encourage runners to use the dive manoeuvre in desperate situations (which arise pretty often in that sport), which would again increase the risk of an injury happening.

Well, given the controversy it has stirred up, I'm sure the IOC will review the situation and if they feel the move is too dangerous or unsportsmanlike they will change the rules to ban the move in future competitions.

 

[gay_Aleks]

is this sarcasm

 

[Flying Pig]

Pushing your torso forward in the race's finish line was/is definitely standard practice in the modern olympics (not sure about the ancient ones). But making a dramatic jump/fall imo doesn't look good, and yes, Snerk has a point about moves which can never be standardised and thus when they appear they are sort of a peculiarity/oddity

Certainly, bobbing for the line is what you're expected to do - watch any sprint or middle-distance run, and you'll see the runners bowing their heads as they cross the line to effectively elongate themselves and so get that extra fraction of a second. If you were playing cricket or baseball, your captain would want to have words with you if you were run out and didn't dive to try and make your ground. With all of that in place, it would be rather odd to ban runners from diving for the line, should they wish to do so, with the caveat that an athletics track is hardly pleasant to dive onto.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

That awkward moment when you think a nation that has a no first-use nuclear policy actually doesn't have such a policy.

 

[Kyriakos]

That awkward moment when you think a nation that has a no first-use nuclear policy actually doesn't have such a policy.

You would already have known that if you had played C&C


Link to video.

 

[Commodore]

That awkward moment when you think a nation that has a no first-use nuclear policy actually doesn't have such a policy.

Hey, we don't want the scattered remnants of humanity in the nuclear wasteland to be able to say we were the ones who caused the nuclear holocaust.

 

[gay_Aleks]

China fired first anyway

 

[Commodore]

China fired first anyway

That they did. Which means we can only conclude that Obama still became president in the Fallout universe and enacted the No-First-Use Policy and it stuck all the way up until the Great War.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Trump was right; the Chinese are taking American jobs

It's the US's duty and job to glass the world into an unhabitable hellhole while doing morally questionable experiments ran by a shadowy elite!

 

[Takhisis]

They're not morally questionable when the President does it.

TIL Geraldo Rivera is Jewish.

 

[Zkribbler]

Costa Rica is 99% powered by renewable energy.

Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin Lookalike contest and came in third.