Biggest complaint about the olympics

[rusty JEDI]

How many swimming events do they need?

50m, 100, 200m, 400m, etc. Now multiply that by freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke (probably missing one). Now multiply that by individual, and a bunch of team events. Now multiply that by allowing in so many athletes that really have no shot at all, but run them through 6 heats for every single event, then a semis and a finals.

Seriously we need to get rid of almost all of them, and in particular all the extra strokes (back, breast, butterfly). Who really cares who can do the fastest butterfly. All anyone should care about is who moves the fastest in the water any way they choose period.

In running it is simply who goes the fastest and they dont add events like running on one leg, or running backwards.

Second complaint....Synchronized diving (what a joke).

rJ

[bugstud]

kinda like the hurdles and steeplechase, though...

[Taxman]

Well, they do have a lot of different distances for running as well. I kinda like watching the different strokes and I think some are inherently faster, thus if they made them irrelevant, everyone would end up doing the same thing anyway. I think the medleys are cool too. Also if you've ever swam, there is a pretty big difference between swimming even 50m and 100m. It's much more of a workout than running. Sychronized diving is kinda lame, although I am amazed at how sychronized the top teams actually are.

I was watching sailing the other night. Now that is a boring sport to watch.

[Ray Zee]

hey rusty, the fires up there have you smoke confused. the olympics are for the athletes not the tv audience.

[rusty JEDI]

[ QUOTE ]
hey rusty, the fires up there have you smoke confused. the olympics are for the athletes not the tv audience.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can not tell if thats sarcasm or not. Is there an olympics without the fans?

I just dont see the point in watching some kid pad the USA medal count because he can swim so many similar events.

The one that bugs me the most is the fly. It can not possibly be faster or more efficient than the other strokes. Why not make a running event where instead of the arms alternating forward motion, they must both go forward and back at the same time. This will slow you down and tire you out the same as the fly would in swimming. The only difference is one receives a gold medal and the other i just made up.

[ QUOTE ]
kinda like the hurdles and steeplechase, though...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think it is rare to have someone at the top of the world in hurdling and sprinting or steeplechase and long distance. However, in swimming it happens way too often that the tops in one stroke is close to tops in another.

rJ

[natedogg]

President Carter killed the olympics. Well, he shot first at least.

They should remove all sports that are team sport or require a judge. If you can't time it or measure it and give the medal to one person, can it.

natedogg

[swimfan]

[ QUOTE ]
The one that bugs me the most is the fly. It can not possibly be faster or more efficient than the other strokes. Why not make a running event where instead of the arms alternating forward motion, they must both go forward and back at the same time. This will slow you down and tire you out the same as the fly would in swimming. The only difference is one receives a gold medal and the other i just made up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fly is the second fastest stroke. I see the analogy you're making with track and field. Why have hurdles or a steeplechase? Anyway, there is a point of only racing one stroke since it's the fastest (freestyle), but your argument over distance leaves me confused since you're making an analogy to track in previous posts. Furthermore, you may not like to watch, however if I'm not mistaken, the stands are at capacity for all strokes, and why would NBC put swimming in primetime if there were no fans? Besides, there is a great amount of differentiation between the four strokes (at least in sight); I'm not certain your suggested event holds true.

Michael Phelps is unique in world class swimming. Rarely do you see a swimmer cross strokes at a world class level. I could care less about the medal count, I only want to watch the best at each separate event.

[pudley4]

[ QUOTE ]
They should remove all sports that require a judge. If you can't time it or measure it and give the medal to one person, can it.

natedogg

[/ QUOTE ]

Keep the team sports, but I agree 100% with this part of your statement.

[Ray Zee]

the butterfly is the fastest stroke of all, or it used to be for short distances. but in the olympics they go farther.

[swimfan]

Ray, sorry to dispute/be a nit, but freestyle is faster, even over short distances such as 25 yards...but the fly can almost be as fast as freestyle over short distances (up to 50M)...the fastest 50 yard free time is about 19.1, think the fastest 50 yard fly is around 20.6. The top backstroke times are a bit faster than fly in yards because of turns. However as an average, fly is faster than backstroke in distances up to 200M.

[MMMMMM]

The butterfly is the most tiring stroke of all.

They have different length swim races just like they have different length running races. Why should they have all those different distances in running, anyway;-)

[MMMMMM]

"They should remove all sports that are team sport or require a judge. If you can't time it or measure it and give the medal to one person, can it."

I agree except I think they should keep fencing and wrestling. Heck, wrestling was in the original Olympics.

[busguy]

Wow.

And I thought I was bummed that Canada did so poorly in the pool in the first couple of days in Athens.


/images/graemlins/grin.gif busguy

[jwvdcw]

[ QUOTE ]


In running it is simply who goes the fastest and they dont add events like running on one leg, or running backwards.





[/ QUOTE ]

I was saying the exact same thing yesterday!

[jwvdcw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The one that bugs me the most is the fly. It can not possibly be faster or more efficient than the other strokes. Why not make a running event where instead of the arms alternating forward motion, they must both go forward and back at the same time. This will slow you down and tire you out the same as the fly would in swimming. The only difference is one receives a gold medal and the other i just made up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fly is the second fastest stroke. I see the analogy you're making with track and field. Why have hurdles or a steeplechase? Anyway, there is a point of only racing one stroke since it's the fastest (freestyle), but your argument over distance leaves me confused since you're making an analogy to track in previous posts. Furthermore, you may not like to watch, however if I'm not mistaken, the stands are at capacity for all strokes, and why would NBC put swimming in primetime if there were no fans? Besides, there is a great amount of differentiation between the four strokes (at least in sight); I'm not certain your suggested event holds true.

Michael Phelps is unique in world class swimming. Rarely do you see a swimmer cross strokes at a world class level. I could care less about the medal count, I only want to watch the best at each separate event.

[/ QUOTE ]

hurdles is different in that it actualy puts an obstacle in the way. Swimmers just use different strokes.....which begs the question: Why not just use the fastest stroke and forget about the rest. A more accurate analogy, as was already mentioned, is to make runners run without moving their arms or something silly like that.

[jwvdcw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
They should remove all sports that require a judge. If you can't time it or measure it and give the medal to one person, can it.

natedogg

[/ QUOTE ]

Keep the team sports, but I agree 100% with this part of your statement.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll third that.

[vulturesrow]

I think all the staple events from elementary school field day should be added to the Olympics, including but not limited to, the sack race, the three legged race, the water balloon toss, etc. Now youre talking skill baby!!!

Of course everyone realizes that at some point this thread must address the complete ridiculousness of the game of curling. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[swimfan]

True. As I've said in that post, I understand the point of having one stroke and be done with it. However my main point - is running on one leg, or arms moving forward simultaneously drastically different in sight than the four swimming strokes (obvious physiological differences for swimming)?

There are a number of people that may not care for it, however, in the big picture, is there a demand to watch these events/strokes? I would argue yes, for the following reasons:

1. Swimming events are filled to capacity.
2. Swimming is on during prime-time
3. The spike in swimming registrations in Olympic years.

[busguy]

As a sport or an olympic sport ??

As a sport it is no more ridiculous than say bowling (it's actually just bowling on ice) but as an Olympic sport I do think that it is a little silly.

/images/graemlins/smile.gif busguy

[Martin Aigner]

When you go swimming, you usually will swimm breaststrokes. Sometimes you will move around and swimm backstrokes. And when a crocodile is hunting you, you´ll most probably change it to freestyle.

On the other side: Nobody ever runs without moving their arms or runs backwards. Guess that might explain, why the 3 different disciplines have some authorization.

That leaves butterfly: Well, let´s just agree that this is one of the most elegant sportdiscipline. That should be enough.

Best regards

Martin Aigner

[Martin Aigner]

Not quite true: The original olympic event had only one single discipline, which was the stadium run. This happend to be the same for a couple of events, then there was a second discipline, which was a run of twice the lenghts of a stadium. The next event was the long run, and finally, in something like the 7th or 8th olympic games there was the pentathlong, which included wrestling.

Best regards

Martin Aigner

[MMMMMM]

That's still close enough to the original for me, but thanks for the additional info;-)

[pudley4]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The one that bugs me the most is the fly. It can not possibly be faster or more efficient than the other strokes. Why not make a running event where instead of the arms alternating forward motion, they must both go forward and back at the same time. This will slow you down and tire you out the same as the fly would in swimming. The only difference is one receives a gold medal and the other i just made up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fly is the second fastest stroke. I see the analogy you're making with track and field. Why have hurdles or a steeplechase? Anyway, there is a point of only racing one stroke since it's the fastest (freestyle), but your argument over distance leaves me confused since you're making an analogy to track in previous posts. Furthermore, you may not like to watch, however if I'm not mistaken, the stands are at capacity for all strokes, and why would NBC put swimming in primetime if there were no fans? Besides, there is a great amount of differentiation between the four strokes (at least in sight); I'm not certain your suggested event holds true.

Michael Phelps is unique in world class swimming. Rarely do you see a swimmer cross strokes at a world class level. I could care less about the medal count, I only want to watch the best at each separate event.

[/ QUOTE ]

hurdles is different in that it actualy puts an obstacle in the way. Swimmers just use different strokes.....which begs the question: Why not just use the fastest stroke and forget about the rest. A more accurate analogy, as was already mentioned, is to make runners run without moving their arms or something silly like that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Except they now have speed-walking as an olympic event...

[Zeno]

The Ancient Olympics did evolve over time to include many events, not just racing. Events included chariot racing, javelin, discus, and the 400 yd run in full armor. The recent Smithsonian Magazine Olympics (http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues04/aug04/olympics.html) has an article about the Olympic games. The Author of the article has a book out called The Naked Olympics which discusses the orgins and evolution of the Olympic Games in the Classical World.

-Zeno

[swimfan]

Thanks for articulating something I was unable to. Congrats on Rogan's silver, I liked your other post. As for the reason why I watch, simply to watch any world records get broken and for the storylines.

[MMMMMM]

I would like to see the chariot racing and 400-yd run in full armor.

[rusty JEDI]

[ QUOTE ]
hurdles is different in that it actualy puts an obstacle in the way. Swimmers just use different strokes.....which begs the question: Why not just use the fastest stroke and forget about the rest. A more accurate analogy, as was already mentioned, is to make runners run without moving their arms or something silly like that.


[/ QUOTE ]

I could not have said it better.

rJ

[Martin Aigner]

Well, we seem to have different sources. According to this site http://www.culture.gr/2/21/211/21107a/og/games.html the very first event only had the stadium run.

Anyways, not too important.

Best regards

Martin Aigner

[WEASEL45]

dont you knock over stuff in bowling

[Usul]

The origional Olympics may not have had wrestling, but wrestling is the first sport ever done competitively among human beings.

[Oski]

[ QUOTE ]
The origional Olympics may not have had wrestling, but wrestling is the first sport ever done competitively among human beings.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would guess that running was the first competitive sport and the wrestling was not "introduced" until the competitors hit the bath house.

[Ulysses]

Can someone please explain to me why synchronized diving exists?

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
The Ancient Olympics did evolve over time to include many events....

[/ QUOTE ]


I did say the above, so we actually agree, I think.

Not that it matters much. Let the games begin and continue on.

-Zeno

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Can someone please explain to me why synchronized diving exists?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because 90% of the people on this cesspool of a planet are morons.

Le Misanthrope

[Bill Murphy]

/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Usul]

[ QUOTE ]
I would guess that running was the first competitive sport and the wrestling was not "introduced" until the competitors hit the bath house.

[/ QUOTE ]

And you would guess wrong. Wrestling has been done competitively since, and even before man evolved from primates. Running has been around a long time, but prehistoric man didn't race each other to see who was the dominant male.

[rusty JEDI]

[ QUOTE ]
Can someone please explain to me why synchronized diving exists?

[/ QUOTE ]

Canadas first medal of these games is why. Now that the flood gates are open, watch out.

rJ

[Usul]

Yeah. I'm with RJ here. If we didn't have Synchro Diving, we Canucks couldn't pad our otherwise crummy medal count. That said, we're always in the top five at the winter games.