The real medal counts at the Olympics
Bookworm on Aug 20 2008 at 8:19 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
There are basically two types of events at the Olympics: those that are timed and those that are judged. The problem with the latter events, of course, is that they are subject to human fallability, national loyalty, grudges, and out-and-out dishonesty. I was therefore quite interested when my sister sent me to a sports blog written a few days ago that looked at the huge difference in US outcomes, depending on whether the winners were being calculated by an objective clock or a subjective judge. Turns out that the Chinese lead, while still there, is diminished significantly. Does any of this mean anything in the long run or the grand scheme of things? No. But it’s still interesting.
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5 Responses to “The real medal counts at the Olympics”
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Actually it does, and my comment in the Doctor Liberty thread describes some of it.
There’s a problem with the judged sports - no doubt. We were watching the men’s diving last night, and the commentator pointed out - with the slo-mo video running - several flaws in the Chinese diver’s gold medal winning final dive. He scored 2 or 3 10s. Now I’m not qualified to judge the dive, but the errors she pointed out were clear. Not being qualified, I don’t know what the deductions should have been…but a perfect ten? from two separate judges? That clearly indicates to me that there’s _something_ going on that stinks…!
You might find this article interesting…
http://dissfunktional.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/chinese-angry-with-us/#more-493
Thanks, suek.
More on China and how nice it looks…
http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=9143