Gearing up for the games

We thought it might be fun to talk about an event which is about to saturate the world media. By all means weigh in on your favourite events (or least-favourite), but let's talk about the bigger picture as well. Here's some questions, to start things going:

Question #1: What do you think of the underlying concept of the Olympics? (You can read the Olympic Charter online or download it from the official site.)

Question #2: Do you think that there are sports that should (or should not) be included in the current Olympics?

Question #3: If you could change two things about the current way in which the games are organized what would they be?

Question #4: If you could change two things about the current way in the the games are broadcast what would they be?

Question #5: Do you have any other thoughts about the upcoming games?

The Olympic Games of 2012 will begin Friday July 27. You can learn the schedule for the different sports and follow results on the official site. This page leads to more detailed information about each of the individual sports, their schedules and results. Click here to find information about the media coverage of the Olympics in your area.

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

Comments

[Kirala]

Re: Question #2: I think there are several athletic events which should not be included in the Olympics - those which always require the discretion of the judges to determine the winner. I prefer events which require judges only in unusual cases or to ensure fair play - or at least, I prefer them as sports. However, since I do not enjoy these sports and I do enjoy what I call the athletic arts (e.g. gymnastics, diving, ice dancing and figure skating), following this rule would remove 90% of the reason for my watching the Olympics. Which is also why I suspect they never will be removed.

[MercuryBlue]

Something I don't get about the Olympics. They say their goal is to use sports to promote peace, which is a worthy goal. And they say the competitors are the individual athletes and teams, not the countries themselves. Okay. But how many people actually cheer for any Olympic competitor who isn't from their own country?

What I'm wondering is, what problems would there be with having all the Olympic teams be multi-country? Like, finalize the roster of Olympic-bound team-sports athletes say a year before the games, then shuffle the deck--say if there's a two-person-per-team sport where the only countries sending players are the US and Japan, instead of the teams being Maria and Anne from the US vs Hitomi and Kasumi from Japan, have Team Blue be Maria and Hitomi and Team Gold be Kasumi and Anne. And then these teams would have a whole year to get used to being a team before the games.

Wouldn't work for individual sports, of course, but I don't know why it wouldn't work for team sports.

Also the nonsense where intersex and trans athletes have to meet somebody else's standard of femininity in order to compete against cis women (but nobody's gender-policing the competitors who identify male). That needs to stop.

[cjmr, who is HOME!, on her son's netbook]

Not one of the questions, but:

I'd like to see a third category of competition offered in all sports which it is practicable to do so--mixed gender team competition and/or mixed gender competition. This is already done in some sports (badminton, tennis, and I think equestrian and table tennis) and I don't see any reason why it couldn't easily be extended to things like archery, shooting, cycling, marathon, swimming, trampoline, rowing, sailing, etc. At the outset it might be necessary to require athletes to enter in only one category 'mens' or 'womens' or 'mixed' to prevent the elitest of the elite male athletes from walking off with all the medals in both 'mens' and 'mixed' categories, but I don't think that would need to be permanent.

(I don't see boxing or wrestling as mixed gender sports, though.)

[MercuryBlue]

cjmr: how come? I can't think of any reason why a woman in a given weight class shouldn't be able to box or wrestle a man in the same weight class. So as long as the women's weight classes have the same boundaries as the men's weight classes...

[cjmr, who is HOME!, on her son's netbook]

Actually, I think boxing should be banned as a sport entirely.

That said, IMO, broadcasting men and women beating each other up on worldwide television, even as sport, is not something that should be encouraged. I think it would be trigger-inducing for a large section of the audience of the Olympics, among other reasons. Since young children (who can't necessarily differentiate sport and not sport) and school children make up a significant portion of Olympic viewers, I just think it is a bad idea.

Mixed-gender wrestling could appear to audiences to be similarly triggering. Conversely, mixed-gender wrestling could appear to audiences to be too sexual.

tl;dr I don't think audiences (especially audiences containing children) are ready for mixed-gender contact sports in the Olympics.

[Laiima]

Probably of no interest to anybody but me, but I'm very excited about it...

My birthday is Friday, which means that the Olympics this year start on my birthday! I don't think that's ever happened before, and I'm way excited.

[Lonespark]

IDK how much I care about Olympics with no ski jumping.

I would like to see wrestling integrated, with all deliberate speed, and probably other sports with weight classes could go the same way, maybe.

There is a huge, huge thing where sexist and misogynistic guys will refuse to compete against women. It goes for sports in general, but extremely much for contact sports and martial arts. Actually getting on/in to a field/court/ring to win or lose on the same terms as everyone sends a strong message that you really are a full human person, and these guys know it, and fight it to the point of quitting things they love and excel at.

That isn't to say that gender-integrated sports would be good. It could very well be presented in a titilating manner or always in a very sexist way. I still think it's a good way to go in a long view, not to mention how it should eliminate the supposed need for gender/sex policing.

[cjmr]

If I were going to be in charge of integrating Olympic weight class sports, I'd actually start with martial arts, because people are already familiar with the concept of mixed-gender competition in martial arts at the dojo and league levels. (My sister-in-law regularly the butts of many of the male same-level black belts at her dojo, for example.)

[cjmr]

'kicks the butts of'

Proofreading is our friend!

[MercuryBlue]

cjmr: boxing has rules, domestic violence does not. Which is not to say your point is invalid. Also, homoeroticism.

[Laiima]

#4 I'd like to see a lot more stuff where the USA aren't contenders in the sport. I like the Olympics because I love the mastery and craft people have worked so long and hard for. I don't much care which country they are from. If they're the best in the world, I want to see them competing. Even if they're from, idk, Uzbekistan or San Marco or Tuvalu.

(I don't really 'get' patriotism. I'm not 'proud' to be American. I mostly like living here, but that's an accident of where my grandparents ended up. It doesn't make me a better person than someone whose grandparents or parents ended up in Morocco, or the Philippines, or wherever else.)

[cjmr]

@Laiima, there are several Olympic sports where the US aren't major contenders. NBC tends not to show very much coverage of them. Mind you, most of them are things that Real Americans (TM) don't consider sport. (z.B. Badminton and Table Tennis)

I try to make it a habit to point out to my kids elegant/beautiful/skilled performance when we watch sports, without regard to which country the athlete is representing. I don't get the 'US deserves to win all the medals' mentality I've seen in various places.

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@MercuryBlue, I don't have the spoons right now to go into a deep discussion of domestic abuse vs. mixed gender boxing competition. I will just say, I don't think that the international sporting community should be supporting/broadcasting sporting events that might require content warnings for viewers who have suffered physical abuse*, and leave it at that.

*which is why I don't think boxing should be televised AT ALL

[Amaryllis]

A half-answer to #3: I kind of miss the old days when the summer and winter games were held in the same year, and an Olympic year was an Olympic Year, dammit! and something a little special. This every-two-years business just makes me feel like, "What, Olympics again? Didn't we just do that?"

[MercuryBlue]

It seems to me that boxing carries an inherent if implicit content warning for physical violence. Rather the same way that romance novels carry an inherent if implicit content warning for sex (unless published by an imprint that makes a point of not having sex on the page). Don't like, don't consume.

I do take your point about a man-vs-woman boxing match having uncomfortable parallels to typical domestic violence if it's the man winning. But the whole point of weight classes is to even the playing field, and in a substantial fraction of those man-vs-woman boxing matches (probably about half, certainly more than a third), the woman will win.

Anyway, it's going to take an awful lot of vocal like-minded folk to persuade the various PTBs that boxing is too violent for broadcast. If you want to lead that charge, more power to you, but I'd rather accept that boxing exists and is on TV and is here to stay, and work within that. As it stands, segregating boxing carries the implicit message that women aren't good enough at boxing to compete against men, and it opens non-gender-conforming boxers to gender policing. Integrating boxing solves both problems.

Hope you have or can soon recover enough spoons to do everything you need and at least some of what you want.

[St. Jebus]

@ MercuryBlue I don't know about that implicit message. Part of the problem I see would actually be the men not actually trying to compete; that is to say, many, if not most, men are raised in an environment in which hitting a woman is one of the worst things that one can do. I certainly was. When I was in martial arts, I had to really work (mentally) at hitting my sparring partner if it happened that I was sparring a female.

So I think it's less that women can't compete, but that it avoids the appearance of a mismatch(i.e., if the man wins, the woman wasn't good enough, if the woman wins, the man wasn't trying because she was a woman)

[MercuryBlue]

Hm. Point. Though the solution to that might be for the men who don't want to hit women to get their asses kicked in the boxing ring by women a few times, enough to kickstart the impulse to defend masculine pride.

(I have feels about this. Why do I have feels about this? It's sports. I actively avoid participation and spectation of sports.)

[MercuryBlue]

(or, really, the solution would be take us off the damned pedestal, but that's gonna be a long time coming and will take a lot of effort to do)

[cjmr]

Unfortunately, while it is relatively easy to avoid boxing on TV most of the time, when you are watching the Olympics, you don't necessarily get a sufficiently in advance (or sometimes any) warning before they segue into a boxing montage. Sometimes even in the commercials...

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Anyway, tomorrow I need to have spoons enough to watch 9 kids for an hour while my friend goes to get a filling, go to the CSA and Farmer's Market on the way back, and make dinner when we're home. I think I will not be doing much on the weekend...need to or want to.

[St. Jebus]

Content note: mention of pornography

True. The mismatch of male privilege vs. women's oppression is a different topic, though.

I will say that as far as boxing being televised, to my mind that falls under free speech - in the same category as pornography, if you will. If you don't like the violence, then you're not obligated to consume it, just as if you don't like or want to consume porn, you don't open your browser and google it.

[St. Jebus]

Note: my comment was addressed to MercuryBlue - I didn't see your comment until afterwards, cjmr. I didn't want to seem like I was trying to draw you into using up spoons on me. :)

[MercuryBlue]

Yeah, cjmr, that's...not bright of them. About as not bright as the idea of popup ads for porn sites.

It does say something about our collective priorities that television stations cheerfully broadcast depictions of violence and its aftermath with at most a 'this program contains content that may be disturbing to some viewers' screen up front, but depictions of sex and nudity are either carefully shot to avoid actually glimpsing genital or female nipple, or are on cable or pay-per-view where to see them one must first fork over money.

Also it occurred to me that the reason many men object to hitting women is because they've been taught it isn't fair. Because women can't, or can't effectively, fight back. Because men are larger and stronger and because the socialization of boys inclines more to physical violence than that of girls. So, long-term, equalize the socialization, and short-term, put women of a given weight and level of experience in the boxing ring (and other arenas) against men of roughly the same weight and experience and let the women prove they're just as good as the men.

[Kirala]

@MercuryBlue - how would you propose ending gender disparity in events such as sprinting, where men seem to have an edge on women? At least, I've never seen women's records comparable to men's...

[MercuryBlue]

No idea. Doesn't make the nonsense Caster Semenya went through okay, though. (Not that Semenya's a sprinter, but.)

[Literata]

Content note: pron (yes, I'm spelling it that way in hopes of avoiding attracting certain kinds of searches etc)

St Jebus, I would argue that you're making a false equivalence based on the differences in technology. Browsing is mostly "pull" technology - except for popups, you have a fair amount of control and choice over what shows up in front of you. You have to take an action to see the content in question. TV watching is "push" technology - if you don't take an action when they warn you, or if they don't warn you, it gets dumped in your lap. I see it as a fairly important difference. This is one of the reasons certain regulations exist about what can and can't be shown on what channels during what hours. Those regs are probably screwed up all to hell and back in so many ways it's hard to count, but they do take into account a fundamental difference in the technology.

Whether boxing is comparable to pron in terms of people wanting/not wanting to watch it I leave to others.

[cjmr, who is HOME!, on her son's netbook]

Thank you, Literata, for explaining that better than I was getting ready to do.

[Literata]

If I saved you spoons, cjmr, I'm glad!

[St. Jebus]

@ Literata Hm. There is a difference there, yes, but I don't think the difference is that pronounced. You still have to choose what channel to watch, and one always has the option to change the channel and/or turn the tv off. I know there are things on TV that I don't like or want to consume. My solution is to either turn them off when they appear, or I don't go to them in the first place.

[Literata]

St Jebus, you're displaying a remarkable lack of awareness about how other people consume media. If that's an accident, then listen to those of us who are telling you that it's not necessarily that simple. If your point is that everyone should consume media like you do, well, you're being a jerk. Stop it.

In particular, if one sees something triggering, it's not as simple as "the option to change the channel." That's why trigger warnings exist for text venues, for example. And as for "don't go to them," cjmr already pointed out that she may want to watch the Olympics but not certain sports, and there isn't always a warning.

[Izzy]

For most television programs--say, an episode of "Buffy" or a Monday night football game--I'd agree with St. Jebus. The problem with the Olympics, as cmjr mentions, is that they tend to cut from one sport to another without much warning at all.*

I definitely want to see more sports integrated. If you have a problem with fighting women, you get your ass kicked, or you don't get to compete. Sucks to be you; get over it. I'm also glad to hear that some martial arts have mixed-gender tournaments: mine didn't, at black belt level, which I always felt was unfair.**

I like the individual events--gymnastics, diving, riding, fencing. Do not care about team sports: they're too hard to follow and they go on too long.

*Which is also a problem from other perspectives. I would rather not sit through volleyball on the off chance that they might switch to fencing or gymnastics or something that actually interests me.
**This adds to my vexation with "Next Karate Kid," though. Not that I needed more of it.

[St. Jebus]

I apologize for the implication that I was telling everyone to consume media the same way I do.

Second, I do understand the issue with triggering. I personally have an issue with needles. Needles appearing on-screen rarely have a warning. When that happens, I have to look away/close my eyes, etc. But, if I want to watch shows that I like, such as House, I have to be prepared for those events to happen. (That's not to say that everyone can respond to their personal triggers in the same way. But that's the example I have to work with.)

As far as boxing competitions go, I absolutely understand how triggering that can be for someone who has been abused. At the same time, boxing is enjoyed by significant portion of the population. It's equally bad for those who enjoy boxing to tell those triggered by it, "Your pain is unimportant," as it is for those who are triggered by it to say, "It must be banned."

In the case of the Olympics, I think there is an implied warning - all of the sports going on will be advertised during the coverage of the event.

In the case of regular television viewing,I do think there's a larger issue regarding the conflation of nudity as inherently bad, and violence as a corner case(I think it should probably be closer to the other way around), but, I think, out of the scope of what I was getting at.

[Froborr]

I don't see why it would be hard to say, "The following segment contains violence" before showing any violent sports.

TW: Description of being triggered

St. Jebus: Everything about your comment demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what it is to be triggered. Having a trigger is not the same as disliking something or being squeamish about something. A trigger is an acquired mental allergy. It is a concept or image that triggers the psychological equivalent of non-lethal, but very painful, anaphylactic shock.

Second, I do understand the issue with triggering. I personally have an issue with needles. Needles appearing on-screen rarely have a warning. When that happens, I have to look away/close my eyes, etc. But, if I want to watch shows that I like, such as House, I have to be prepared for those events to happen.

Now imagine that instead of "needing to look away," seeing needles caused you to feel panicky, dizzy, nauseated, and short of breath for about a half hour, followed by anywhere from hours to weeks of severe depression, possibly with suicidal urges.

Now imagine you had no interest in House, but really wanted to watch Mad Men--but the only way to watch it was in alternating, variable-length segments of five different shows, one of which was House: Nothing But Needles Edition.

It's equally bad for those who enjoy boxing to tell those triggered by it, "Your pain is unimportant," as it is for those who are triggered by it to say, "It must be banned."

"My favorite show is no longer going to be on TV!"

"I had severe physical and mental pain lasting hours to weeks."

Oh yeah, those are definitely equally bad. /sarcasm

[hapax]

Froborr, that's a very good description of the effect of triggers, and I don't think anymore needs to be said. There's a discussion of triggers, trigger warnings, and why we use them here in the FNEs on the sidebar.

[St. Jebus]

"'My favorite show is no longer going to be on TV!'

'I had severe physical and mental pain lasting hours to weeks.'

Oh yeah, those are definitely equally bad. /sarcasm"

They are bad for different reasons. The issue of banning something like boxing on tv is like banning the Phelps family from protesting - they are both free speech rights. I don't agree with Phelps and find their protests disgusting. But if I start saying that the things that I disagree with or find hurtful must be banned, then I lose my own right to free speech.

[Izzy]

I am not a fan of banning anything from TV. The watershed/prime time guidelines, the ratings, and the beginning-of-program warnings should be enough. Which still leaves random-channel-flipping as potentially problematic, but that really strikes me as one of those unfortunate compromises the world requires, and I'd rather err on the side of freedom of expression there.

That said, I'm not sure why the Olympics does the bits-and-pieces setup it does. It doesn't seem like a great idea for all kinds of reasons. Anyone out there more knowledgeable?

[kisekileia]

I think boxing should be removed from the Olympics because it's too damn dangerous. Look at what happened to Muhammad Ali--devastated by Parkinson's by his 60s. The helmets aren't enough protection. And hockey should have much stricter rules about hits to the head and other fighting that's likely to cause concussions--the issue seems to be a non-starter in the NHL, but the Olympics might be able to initiate something like that.

I'd like to see men-only, women-only, and mixed-gender competitions all available for most sports. I suspect there are some sports, especially sprinting and sports involving upper body strength, where men do have a real physiological advantage over women. Having all competition be mixed-gender would reduce the opportunities for women to compete in those sports. I think mixed-gender competition should be available, for the sake of trans and non-binary people and those who would prefer it for other reasons, but I also think single-sex competition should be available for those athletes who are uncomfortable with mixed-gender (e.g. women in contact sports who've been assaulted or abused by men).

I think it might also be a good idea to have a system for at least partially equalizing the levels of funding different countries have available to spend on their athletes--for example, by having countries pay an amount that depends on population and GDP, and distributing the money according to population. It wouldn't be perfect, and it might excessively harm the most competitive countries, but it would be nice to see some sort of system that would make athletes' achievements less dependent on how much money their countries spend on training and technology.

[picklefactory]

Since I've become more interested in athletic pursuits myself in the last four years, I'm finding the Olympics to be much more interesting this time around!

As far as the underlying concept goes (#1), I'm all for it. It's like puppies and kittens. I do wish it didn't seem to have such a negative effect on the host cities, that it didn't provoke so much authoritarian behavior from the IOC and the local governments of London, Beijing, Athens. The corporate sponsorship thing is also kind of getting out of hand. Some percentage of this is human nature, I'm sure, and bound to turn up any time anything on earth is organized.

Regarding the way the games are televised (#4), it seems like the influence of reality TV has crept into the broadcasts of the games in the US. The personal stories of the athletes can be fascinating, sure, but I feel like it should be a side-channel, not the focus of the broadcast. The appeal of the games, to me at least, is watching elite athletes do their thing, so perhaps there could be a separate channel with journalism regarding athletes that have just or are about to compete on the channel(s) that show the events taking place.

I think integrated sports would be great for some of them, terrible for others. It seems to me that integrated competition in any sport where power is more important than technique is going to result in only men winning medals, or even worse, maybe even only men appearing at the Olympics for those events. I think a large part of this is due to the fact that only elite athletes compete in the Olympics in the first place -- I mean, there are many women in the world who can run faster or lift more weight than me, and it pleases me to compete with them in my day-to-day life, but I'm not an Olympic-level athlete. If you go and look at the world records, Usain Bolt's world record for the 100m is almost an entire second, ~10%, faster than Florence Griffith-Joyner. In fact Griffith-Joyner, the fastest female sprinter in the world, would be far, far down on the list of "the fastest sprinters in the world." The same goes for weightlifting: the men's record for the clean and jerk is 263 Kg by the unbelievably strong Hossein Rezazadeh, and women's record is 30% less, 187 Kg by the still unbelievably strong Jang Mi-Ran. (Jang is her family name.) Now, it's true that the weight classes in women's weightlifting are both stupid and sexist, but she wouldn't have a world record if weightlifting were integrated -- at the elite level she would only be competitive with men in the lowest weight class, and she's in the highest.

[The Board Administration Team]

The NRA: Marchons, marchons! thread has now been reopened for comments. It, and any other thread which is, or threatens to become, contentious, may be temporarily closed due the fact that the moderators have lives and their full attention cannot always be given to the board.

[cjmr, who is HOME!, on her son's netbook]

One good thing and one bad thing the kids and I learned about the Olympics while doing our Olympics unit study this morning. (Yes, we'll be studying the Olympics for the next three weeks.)

Good thing: At this Olympics (and hopefully henceforth) women's beach volleyball will be open to teams from a larger range of countries, because bikinis will be the optional uniform, not the required uniform. Women will be able to compete in basically the same uniform men wear singlet/shorts or short-sleeved T/shorts. (I realize this will not necessarily be universally regarded as a good thing, but I consider it a good thing.)

Bad thing (or at least Annoying Thing): If you live in the US, and you click on the any of the 'Official Olympics Merchandise' or 'shop' links on the official 2012 Olympics website, you get redirected FROM the UK/London2012 Official Merchandise shop TO the NBC/TeamUSA Olympics Shop. Don't want to buy something that says TeamUSA? You have to find another way to do it. I KNOW it's a redirect because you can see the official merchandise shop for a split second...

[cjmr, who is HOME!, on her son's netbook]

Change "Don't want to buy something that says TeamUSA?" to "Want to buy something that doesn't say TeamUSA?"

[St. Jebus]

Geez, you're right. I even tried to click on the shop.london address when I googled "2012 olympics merchandise" and it still redirected. That's a problem.

[Froborr]

@Jebus: I thought we were talking about two different things:

1) Dropping boxing as a sport from the Olympics.

2) Putting trigger warnings before violent Olympic events.

Dropping boxing as a sport isn't a free-speech issue. Preventing the broadcast of a boxing match that's already occurred would be, but dropping it from the Olympics is no different from a decision to drop checkers (really was an Olympic sport at one point--look it up!) or add cheerleading.

[St. Jebus]

Ah. Ok, a misunderstanding. You are absolutely correct, dropping boxing as a sport is not a free speech violation.

I have no problem putting a "Violent content" note before violent events, especially given how common of a trigger that can be. That, I have no problem with, though I still think that given that the Olympics cover a broad range of sports, there is an implied content warning. There's no issue making an implied content note explicit, though.

However, I think that there is a qualitative difference between dropping boxing and dropping checkers - the primary one being that checkers can not meet the definition of a sporting event by virtue of it being a solved game - at a certain point, all games become virtually identical and end in a draw because both players are aware of the precise sequence of moves necessary to win.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

This is the first year that women's boxing has been an Olympic sport. I happen to know that because Ireland is hoping for a medal from Katie Taylor.

My last housemates used to watch boxing (actually, they'd watch almost any sport, including the terminally boring ones like American football*), and I didn't like it at all. Didn't even like being in the same room.

TRiG.

* When there's more pause than play, does it actually count as a sport?

[Froborr]

@St Jebus: I don't dispute whether there's an implied content warning. My point is that the violent content warning should go up immediately before the boxing segment, not at the beginning of the Olympics coverage.

As for checkers being solved, I don't think that matters to my point. At some point, somebody said, "Hey, checkers really shouldn't be an Olympic sport," gave some reasons why, and enough of the IOC agreed that it was dropped. What the reasons were isn't really relevant to the example.

[Froborr]

And now the word "point" has lost all meaning. Point point. Point point point point. Pointedly point the point of the point at the point.

[St. Jebus]

I think that putting a content note right before a boxing segment is more of a logistical issue - the network has x minutes of footage, and even if each warning is relatively short(call it 1-2 seconds) those add up rather quickly. Then the network has to decide what event coverage they have to cut.

I think the reasons behind removing Olympic events are important. With boxing the reasoning is: "Some people don't like it, and some of us have a physiological reaction to images of boxing." With checkers it's: "Some people don't like it, and the best any competitor can hope for is an all-way tie, making the outcome pretty much pre-determined."

[St. Jebus]

*oops, that should be "physiological and psychological reaction"

[lonespark]

I'd like to see men-only, women-only, and mixed-gender competitions all available for most sports.

Potentially this makes sense. More open to athletes with religious prohibitions against interacting with the opposite sex in certain contexts, and sometimes there are different kinds of play in team sports... I am looking forward to trying coed rec soccer in the fall.

[gleomstapa]

St. Jebus: the network has x minutes of footage, and even if each warning is relatively short(call it 1-2 seconds) those add up rather quickly. Then the network has to decide what event coverage they have to cut.

It seems to me that a few seconds is a small price to pay for not surprising people with violence. But also - and I don't watch much of the Olympics, so correct me if I'm wrong - the coverage of any sport includes commentary of various sorts, not just straight video of the event. So it seems like they should be able to edit it so that you're forewarned before the boxing actually appears on screen, without sacrificing much coverage. I don't know if that would be enough? But maybe it would be a start.

I wonder: who are the Olympics for, primarily? Are they for the athletes, so they can compete with the best in the world? Are they for nations? Networks and advertisers? The audience? Are they primarily competitive or, despite sports with objective judging criteria, primarily performative?

I wonder about this because I used to fence. And every year there are complaints that people aren't interested in watching the fencing because of the anonymity of masks and white uniforms, the swiftness and smallness of movements, and so forth. It seems like every year the Olympics roll around there's some question of whether fencing will be included. The IOC's efforts to make fencing more telegenic have included cordless scoring and clear masks - neither of which serve the sport itself at all. They don't work as well as established equipment, they cost more, and - in the case of the clear masks - may be less safe. This change is to the detriment of the fencers, and the benefit of the audience (and, via them, the networks).

So who are the Olympics for? Are the athletes just gladiators, fighting for our amusement? Does this promote a peaceful society and the preservation of human dignity?

[gleomstapa]

Oh, and I too would love to see mixed-gender divisions as an option.

[Froborr]

For any given X, X is really for the people making money from X.

There are exceptions, but not really very many--mostly Xs that nobody has yet figured out how to make money from. As soon as somebody does, they pretty rapidly turn into being for the people making money, regardless of who it should be for.

[cjmr, who is HOME!, on her son's netbook]

"I think that putting a content note right before a boxing segment is more of a logistical issue - the network has x minutes of footage, and even if each warning is relatively short(call it 1-2 seconds) those add up rather quickly. Then the network has to decide what event coverage they have to cut."

A warning should be at least 10 seconds to be noticeable. If they want to know what footage to cut to fit it in, I can give them several options that don't require cutting event coverage:

--30 second of the 90 seconds-2 minutes of 'exclusive Olympic graphics with fanfare' that comes at the top of every hour

--30 seconds off any of the many many 'human-interest' stories about the athletes NBC has decided to feature

--30 seconds off any the 'sport-casters interview US medal winners in the studio' segments

--any footage showing people waiting nervously for their turn to participate in a sport that won't be contested for a couple hours

--any footage of athletes arriving at the various venues, eating lunch, returning to the dorm, etc.

--coverage of sportscasters re-hashing controversial calls made more than 1 day in the past

There is LOTS of fluff in Olympic coverage.

[lonespark]

People find fencing boring to watch? Really?

Then again, I'm sure I find it far more boring to watch than I do to participate. That's why my favorite sports to watch are the ones I'll never play, or even watch in person.

[egonschiele]

Men and women competing against one another in boxing?

Wow - some people just have a really poor grasp on reality.

Even within the same class, a fight would be over in seconds.

Same as with tennis. When John McEnroe was asked once about competing against the "best" female player he said it wouldn't be fair because she would not win anything. Then he clarified, she would not even win a point. That may be a bit of hyperbole, but there's no woman playing tennis who could win a game against any male in the top 25.

[MercuryBlue]

[citation needed]

[MercuryBlue]

Let me clarify: I have no reason not to believe McEnroe said that. I want citations for why he thinks he's right.

[egonschiele]

MB - look, there are 40 or 50 male players who can consistently serve in at 135 MPH.

Only 4 or 5 women have EVER broken 125.

That difference is enormous.

[MercuryBlue]

And if tennis were player vs clock, I'd believe that means something. But tennis is player vs player. I can believe it being harder to win against someone with a faster serve. I cannot believe it being impossible to do so. Show me a hundred different f-vs-m tennis matches in which the players have comparable skill and experience levels and in which all the women get their clocks cleaned, and I'll rethink that opinion. Not until.

[The Board Administration Team]

@egonschiele: we direct you to section h. of the new board policies:

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[Froth]

I'd love to see roller derby as an Olympic sport. We just had the first ever roller derby world cup (the USA one, surprising nobody), so while it's a young sport, there were twenty or so countries with enough players to field a team, generally without outside funding.

(All the above applies to flat track derby, not banked track. I'm not involved at all with banked track derby, but my impression is that it's a much smaller sport and much less widespread outside the USA. It's unquestionably a different sport.)

Roller derby has this reputation for being frivolous, and I think that's unfair. It takes skill and training and physical fitness to play derby well, and the playfulness of the names and outfits doesn't alter that. We're at the stage of the sport where firsts are being set all the time - someone recently skated a six-pass jam, which is ridiculously fast - and I'd love for those firsts to have wider recognition, and for rollergirls to be thought of as serious athletes.

[sarah]

When I was in high school, all of our swim events were co-ed until you got to the championship level. Partially, I think, it was that there are fewer boys than girls who swim at the high school level, and partially because taking the time to do separate events would drag out already-long meets. Even our relays were co-ed. And the guys didn't win every event they were in.

[St. Jebus]

I think that M vs F sports not being common is much more a symptom of our culture, as opposed to actual physical differences(I'm including percieved differences under 'culture'). There are some exceptions - football and wrestling, for example. I think boxing comes under a corner case - I've never boxed, but it seems like speed and agility is at least as important as upper body strength and weight. (and weight classes make the last one irrelevant anyway.)

[gleomstapa]

Hm. I suspect that the lack of mixed-gender wrestling is a symptom of culture as well, more than physical differences. My high school didn't have girls' wrestling, so they were allowed to join the boys' team and did, generally a few every year (which makes me wonder why they didn't just call it co-ed wrestling, but anyway). It seems like weight classes take care of a lot - though I'm not sure how the hypothetical mixed-gender olympics would account for women having a higher body fat percent, on average, than men of equivalent fitness, or whether they should.

A ton of fencing competitions are mixed-gender. Women win all the time.

[Mike Timonin]

We had a girl on our high school water polo team, because we didn't have enough girls to field a girl's team (there were only two schools in the city that did, as I recall - championships must have been very fierce, but not particularly surprising). She was scary good, and not above yanking down a guys trunks in the pool to slow him down.

[The Board Administration Team]

All posts are now open to comments, except the "Further Changes" post, which will remain closed. Discussions of present and future community standards, moderation policies, etc., may continue on the "At Patheos: NRA: Marchons, marchons!" thread. As a reminder, comments that focus on re-hashing past conflicts and grievances will be considered de-railing and deleted with a yellow card.

[lonespark]

I just watched 5 minutes of fencing before my kid demanded My Little Pony. I fail to see how that's boring. They even have fun pictures painted on their masks! (I do like SCA fencing where you're not confined to a strip. Are there any sport fencing events that aren't?)

[cjmr]

She who demands other broadcast choices is fortunately content to watch her TV shows on "Daddy's Tabwet".

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

I just realized, while watching dressage, that dressage is a dual mixed-gender event. Not only do men and women compete against each other, so do mares and geldings. (I don't think there are any full stallions doing dressage this year.)

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Isn't that true of most horse-related sports? I know it's true of jump racing (I've read enough Dick Francis novels).

TRiG.

[cjmr]

There are filly-only and colt-only races for younger horses, but everything with a big purse is usually open to all. Women have been doing dressage/jumping type of equestrian events in mixed gender competition for much longer than women jockeys in racing have been widely accepted. I think even within my lifetime.

*goes off to check*

Yep, Diane Crump was the first female jockey to ride the Kentucky Derby in 1970, and the first to ride at that class of race the previous year. Only 6 women (unless there was a new one this year) have ridden in the Kentucky Derby.

[gleomstapa]

Lonespark: I just watched 5 minutes of fencing before my kid demanded My Little Pony. I fail to see how that's boring.

Yeah, I don't get it either, but that's what I've been told, and that was the justification for the clear masks in 2004. I quite like the painted masks, though.

I do like SCA fencing where you're not confined to a strip. Are there any sport fencing events that aren't?

Not that I know of, at least not any mainstream ones (by which I mean fencing that isn't explicitly historical). Which is really too bad, considering how many more tactics are available when fencing circularly.

[chris the cynic]

So, somehow, I forgot that timezones exist, which is the reason that I was unable to figure out when the events I wanted to see would be taking place.

Made somewhat strange by the fact that Saturday is usually the one day of the week I'm consciously aware of timezones.

Anyway, I've learned better now.

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

Watching the gold medal round in Women's Foils now.

[Mike Timonin]

I'm not watching the games. First, I don't have any sort of access to television networks - no cable, no bunny ears (do those even work anymore) no nothin. Second, I really prefer the winter games anyway. I have a couple of questions/writing prompts for those of you with access to TV coverage:
1) I'd love to hear thoughts from you guys on how NBC is covering the games. Actually, I'd love to hear some comparison of the coverage from NBC and the coverage from CBC, perhaps from someone on the US/Canadian border.
2) I imagine I can find some way to watch some events via streaming internet, but I'd have to watch them on my tiny computer monitor. Which events do you think are worth the inconvenience?

[Timothy (TRiG)]

I saw a tiny bit of cycling on a TV screen in a café in a shopping centre today. That's it.

This means I'm missing the male gymnastics (*fans self*), but I'm sure I'll live without them.

TRiG.

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

1. NBC is (mostly) showing sports where the US has a chance for the medals, as I expected. I wish we still lived close enough to the border to get Canadian TV, too. (I grew up near Detroit.) They showed the women's archery bronze and gold medal rounds live, despite the fact that the US women had been eliminated, but I'm not sure if that wasn't because there wasn't much else to show right then. They don't appear to be showing weightlifting or judo on any stations.

2. Don't bother trying to live stream through NBC's site. They will only let you live stream if subscribe to a cable/FiOS/Dish/DirectTV package that includes MSNBC and CNBC. And I've not been able to get the live streaming to work despite the fact that we DO. Some of my friends are watching a BBC feed through their Roku box, another friend is using some sort of redirect service to get a BBC live stream. They all say the BBC coverage is better.

[Caretaker of Cats]

I've been watching a Spanish-language ESPN feed from I don't know where from time to time. The men's archery final was interesting. I would like to watch specific events but I would need to use a proxy server for that. I watched the opening ceremonies live via pirate feed and enjoyed them. From what I heard, NBC cut out some of the best parts and yammered over the rest. I have no nice words for NBC whatsoever.

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

That's a fair assessment of the NBC Opening Ceremony coverage.

[Mike Timonin]

cjmr - Thanks for the Roku tip - I've set things up, I think, so that I can watch on BBC or CBC. Perhaps. I can't test it right now, because someone is watching her Elmo.

[Izzy]

Don't have cable myself, but just watched the women's diving over at a friends' place.* Impressive. Also good, as a woman, to see how non-Hollywood even lifetime, top-form athletes' bodies are when viewed without makeup and airbrushing and really flattering camera angles.

Want to grab the equestrian and fencing events sometime too, maybe online.

*Also Undercover Boss, which I kind of love and should discuss elsewhere.

[chris the cynic]

They showed the women's archery bronze and gold medal rounds live, despite the fact that the US women had been eliminated,

The men's archery final was interesting.

My one goal was to watch archery and I've already missed it?

I am bad at keeping on top of things.

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

Chris, just the team archery events are done. The individual events are scheduled for next Thursday and Friday.

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

August 2 and 3. I guess, that's THIS Thursday and Friday.

[chris the cynic]

So there is still hope. Thank you.

I have no idea why the sudden desire to watch archery, but when I was looking over the events that was the one I wanted to see.

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

If the individual event are contested at the same time of day as the team ones, it will be on around lunchtime.

[Raj]

Izzy: Don't have cable myself

Sorry, what? Don't...have...cable? You speak strangely, o woman of Starship Enterprise from one of the lights in the sky!

[Izzy]

@Raj: Hee!

NBC isn't cable, I now realize. But at some point, I started using "cable" to refer to "all TV that isn't on the Internet."

Weird.

[sarah]

I don't have a TV. Well, we sort of do--we have a projector that we use to watch movies, and it gets two channels (CBS and NBC). Basically, if I want to watch something, I use the internet or my roommate's netflix account.

[Nick Kiddle]

I don't have a TV either, mostly because I know I would spend hours watching it and my already shaky productivity would become zero. I've been getting Olympic news through radio and internet, but xCLP really wishes we could watch instead of listening. By long-standing family tradition, we watch the FA Cup final and the Wimbledon finals at my dad's house, but he's away on holiday at the moment.

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

My kids fell asleep during the opening ceremonies, so I recorded the rest and we're watching it right now.

I just noticed an interesting editing decision NBC made while they were showing the athletes walking in--two male American athletes were holding hands, and as soon as the observer/cameraman/producer noticed it quickly cut to another shot. Since it was tape-delay, not live, they could have easily edited that completely out, but they didn't.

[Amaryllis]

May I resurrect the thread to ask a question of the Slacktivites who follow swimming?

I don't follow it, or know much about it, but I came across this snippet, which reminded me of the discussion here:

When Ye virtually jet-skied past America's Elizabeth Beisel last weekend in the final freestyle leg of the 400-meter individual medley, I actually cried out in shock. [Ye reminded me of how I once felt when watching Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.]She swam the event an almost unheard-of five seconds faster than she ever had before. And, it turns out, her final 50-meter lap in that race was two-tenths of a second faster than the one recorded by men's champion Ryan Lochte moments earlier.

Think about that. For the most important part of the Olympics' most grueling race, a woman beat a man. This has never happened in any leg in any swimming race since women began competing with men in 1912.

I'm not asking for opinions on whether Ye Shiwen had in fact used illegal performance-enhancing drugs. I'd just like to know whether, at this elite level of competition, a woman beating a man should be considered
a) truly as unthinkable as the sun rising in the west
b) physiologically highly unlikely
c) difficult but not impossible
d) something to spark a re-evaluation of conventional wisdom

It may also be noteworthy that in the dead-tree newspaper where I first read that paragraph, the line enclosed in brackets wasn't included. For what that's worth.

(Also-- two tenths of a second is really such a huge huge difference? I'll never understand swimming.)

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

amaryllis asks: "(Also-- two tenths of a second is really such a huge huge difference? I'll never understand swimming.)"

At least two races at this Olympics have been won by 0.01 of a second. Compared to that, 0.2 is a long time.

-----

As you your multiple choice question-- (c) and (d), IMO

[Anonymus]

I wonder if it has anything to do with swimsuits getting better and more aerodynamic. I'm curious to see what women's olympic swimsuits looked like in 1912. If they looked anything like the swimwear women wore to the beach, it's no wonder they were slower at swimming.

I'm following the olympics by reading the local newspaper, though. Not watching any events on tv (don't have one, don't want one) or the internet. There was an interesting article about how interest in less common sports peaks in response to how well our country does in the olympics. When we win a medal, more people want to learn that sport. I can sort of understand this, but not really, because it would make more sense to me to learn a sport that my country has never won a medal for.

[Amaryllis]

Thanks, cjmr.

I suppose 0.2 is a long time, in context. It's just hard for the casual observer to reconcile "two-tenths of a second" with "insurmountable gap," I guess.

@Anonymus: good point re swimsuits.

As for learning a sport, I guess there'd be less internal competition in a sport your country had never won in, but wouldn't there also be less infrastructure, less support, less opportunity to learn it at all?

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

Having watched almost half the Olympics now, there are a number of sports that I see could be easily either fully gender-integrated (men and women competing against each other) or include at minimum one mixed-gender event (male/female teams competing against other similar teams) by the next Olympics:

Archery -- integrated and/or mixed-gender teams
Shooting -- integrated and/or mixed-gender teams
Canoe/Kayak -- mixed-gender teams
Sailing -- integrated or mixed-gender crews
Rowing -- mixed-gender crews
Tennis -- mixed doubles
Badminton -- mixed doubles
Beach Volleyball -- mixed-gender teams
Swimming -- mixed-gender relays
Cycling -- mixed-gender relays
Judo-- integrated weight classes

Field team sports (football/soccer, field hockey, handball, water polo, traditional volleyball etc.) could probably move to mixed-gender teams within 12 years. I think those would take longer because it takes longer for a new system of rules to be developed for long-established sports (or they could establish a new mixed-gender league, which would also take some time to build up).

Gymnastics MIGHT be able to hold one integrated event (vaulting), but most of the apparatus is different between men's and women's competition, and the other apparatus both share (floor) is a tumbling + grace/artistry event for women and a tumbling + strength event for men. There could also be a mixed-gender team event similar to the current team events. Gymnastics is used to changing the rules every four years after Olympics already.

In weightlifting, men are currently lifting (on average) 30-40 lbs more than women of similar weight to win. That might be trickier to integrate.

----

More thoughts as I watch more events.

[chris the cynic]

So seeing the British all (coaches competitors) celebrating in the water (not on land or in their boats) after taking gold and silver in a boating event was delightful. Not entirely sure why, it just was.

And the commentator's response was fun too, "If you're just joining us, this is not a swimming event."

[storiteller]

Rowing -- mixed-gender crews

I think that would actually be very difficult for the large boats because of potential height differences between men and women. I've rowed competitively and having a crew that's all about the same height helps a lot towards keeping the rhythm of the boat. As "catching a crab" (where your oar catches out of time) can have so much power that it flings someone out of the boat, that could be a major issue. However, I could certainly see mixed-gender doubles or quads.

[gleomstapa]

Anonymus: I'm curious to see what women's olympic swimsuits looked like in 1912. If they looked anything like the swimwear women wore to the beach, it's no wonder they were slower at swimming.

I went looking, because that's an interesting question, and was really surprised by how similar they turned out to be; the average 1912 Olympic woman's swimsuit covered a bit more surface area on the shoulders and under the arms than the men's suits, but were otherwise identical.

And then I found an article about Gertrude Ederle, who in 1926 became the first woman to swim the English channel, beating the previous men's record by nearly two hours. Her record stood until 1950, when another woman, Florence Chadwick, broke it.

[Lonespark]

(floor) is a tumbling + grace/artistry event for women and a tumbling + strength event for men

I kind of get how they want to showcase different things due to relative strength in different body parts, so there probably couldn't be mixed-gender competition. But it's not like there are never any young men who are good at the women's events or women who would be interested in doing more strength stuff. I would love to see a few more different kinds of tumbling. The acrobatic stuff is so cool! And it seems like it would have a lower cost of entry since you don't need as much equipment. Not sure how that holds up...

My son is really interested in gymnastics, but after he turns six next month, in our town they only have a girls' program. The Y two towns away has a boys' gymnastics program. My dad, a competitive gymnast in high school, might be supportive enough to drive him over there if he sustains the interest...

[Lonespark]

So swimsuits used to be more alike? Is that because it used to be considered indecent for guys to go around topless?