Olympic Observations - By Dana

The world is enthralled by the Olympics right now, as we are every two years or so. While I have watched the events as I’ve been able, a lack of television in my house makes that difficult, I have read about them online. As I track the results of my favourite sports and note the number of times the royals are spotted in the stands, I’ve also read a lot about women at these Olympics. Lots of history has been made this summer. These are some of the things I’ve learned:

- This was the first year ever that every participating country sent female athletes. The most talked-about was Saudi Arabia; it went back and forth many times as to whether or not they would actually allow women to compete for their county with official delegation. In the end, they permitted two women to compete, one in judo and the other in the 800 m track event.

- For the first time ever, there were women’s competitions in every sport on the Olympic programme. Boxing was the last men’s-only Olympic sport; history was made when Elena Savelyeva of Russia and Kim Hye-Song of North Korea entered the ring on Sunday.

- In at least two instances, sports analysts compared a male and a female athlete performing the same sport and declared that the female athlete’s performance was superior – this is extremely rare. The first was when a 16-year-old Chinese swimmer named Ye Shiwen swam the final 50m of her 400m individual medley in 28.93 seconds to win gold. Ryan Lochte of the US won gold in the men’s version of the same race and swam his final 50m in 29.10 seconds. The second was when US gymnast McKayla Maroney nailed an extremely difficult vault that was identical to one performed by a male gymnast (I cannot for the life of me find his name). In the side by side analysis, Maroney was shown to be approximately a foot and a half higher in the air mid-vault than the male gymnast.

- The governing associations for women’s boxing and women’s badminton faced harsh backlash by trying to mandate that the athletes wear skirts as part of their competition uniforms. Both associations backed down, with boxing making it optional for female fighters to wear skirts instead of trunks.

- On the other side of the issue, the governing association for women’s beach volleyball change their uniform regulations, allowing female competitors to choose to wear shorts and t-shirts, instead of bikinis.

I have opinions on each of these observations, but for now I’d like to hear yours. What have you noticed about women in the Olympics this year?

Guest post by Dana: a powerful woman, fellow bible college alumnus and avid Smoke, Mirrors, and Cigarettes follower.  

Olympic Sprawl

As I was watching the Olympics I heard the commentators discussing the way that particularly the summer Olympics have sprawled to include such a large number of events, which require such a vast amount of infrastructure, that there is very significant burden placed on the host city. And sometimes, such as Athens 2004, Olympic venues become Olympic ruins as they have no use or value after the event. This is dumb.

Currently this is the list of summer Sports:

Aquatic, Archery, Athletics(track&field), Badminton, Basketball, Boxing, Cycling, Canoe/Kayak, Equestrian, Fencing, Field Hockey, Football(Soccer), Golf, Gymnastics, Handball, Judo, Modern, Pentathlon, Rowing, Rugby, Sailing, Shooting, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Triathlon, Volleyball, Weightlifting, Wrestling

A total number 26 different sports. In comparison, the winter Olympics has 7.
The summer Olympics has a total 302 events. In comparison the winter Olympics has 98.

I think perhaps that in attempting to increase the importance and social draw of the Olympics we have, mistakenly, as with so many things, increased the size, under the false assumption that bigger is better.  The IOC is aware of this and have recently eliminated baseball and softball from the Olympics and also seem to have a guideline that Olympic additions require subtractions. This is positive but not enough.

I would like to propose some basic rules that would trim down excess Olympic sports and events.

Rule #1: 
If there is already a a professional sports league in which top athletes earn over $1 000 000+ a year, it shouldn't be in the Olympics.

This definitly eliminates: basketball, soccer, rugby, golf, tennis and possibly boxing...

Rule #2:
Subjective sports that require panels of judges to score performance shouldn't be in the Olympics.

This eliminates: gymnastics, diving, synchronized swimming.

Rule #3: 
Sports that rely on significant non human powered elements to accomplish tasks should not be in the olympics.

This eliminates: Sailing, Equestrian and shooting.

These 3 simple rules would, in my opinion, improve the Olympics and help eliminate sprawl. Furthermore, it would help democratize and globalize the sports and events more fairly by eliminating some of the most socio economically exclusive sports such as tennis, golf, sailing and equestrian, which reek of western white privilege.

These rules reduce the number of sports to 14.

While the above three rules are a good start, lets add a few more:
Rule #4:
Olympic sports should regularly, commonly and conceivably occur outside.

This eliminates: ping pong. It also ensures bar sports like bowling, pool and darts will never become Olympic events.

Rule #5: 
In the spirit of peace and common humanity, Olympic sports should not be violently adversarial.

This eliminates: fencing, judo, taekwondo, modern pentathlon and wrestling.

Rule #6:
Sports should have an "Olympic" quality.

This is my cop out to eliminate the other sports/events I want rid of: archery, badminton, field hockey, handball and probably volleyball...

MORE CUTS!
There are too many events so we need to make some more cuts.

Aquatic: 
No relays. Swimming relays make no sense in the real world. Rule #4
Water Polo. Water polo, no matter how difficult, is ridiculous. Rule #6

Athletics:

The 2 walking events should be eliminated. Rule #6

Triple Jump should be eliminated. How was this even invented? Rule #6

Cycling: 
Any races that involve points or pace bikes should be eliminated. Rule #6

Weightlifting:
Weightlifting should not have weight classes at the Olympic level. Otherwise we should start factoring in leg length in running competitions, height in high jumps, armspan in swimming etc.

As you can see I have hacked and slashed the Olympics into a perfect modern competition of strength and speed.
Aquatic

Athletics (track & field)

Cycling
Canoe/Kayak

Rowing

Triathlon

Weightlifting

As a result some of the flashiest most spectator friendly events have been dropped, perhaps to your disappointment. To this end I would like to also make a suggestion of some additions to the Olympics to make up for some of this:

Gymnastics:
#1: A parkour style obstacle course race which utilizes gymnastic skills in the pursuit of speed.
#2: A skills competition in which competitors compete with specific tricks.
Each skill having to be completed to move on to the next one, similar to high jump. Rules can be set regarding what qualifies as successful completion. Perfect landing collect bonus points and can be used to break ties. Ties could also be broken by head to duels in which gymnasts must copy each other until someone fails like the basket ball game HORSE. 

Skateboarding:
#1: Urban Racing - including stairs, rails and obstacles, with a simple time penalty for falls.
#2: Longboard street racing

Climbing:
#1: Time Trials
#2: Bouldering

Well, thats all I've got. What do you think?