an olympic "sport"?

[darlene]

Hi all. Dh and I were discussing the olympics last night....especially after what happened to our skaters!
He says an event that is judged...obviously by some bad ones at that....is not a fair event at the olympics.
He says that events like skiing, luge, hockey, curling etc. are valid events because it is obvious who wins/loses and is not based on a judges "opinion".

What do you all think?


:)

[AnnW]

Alot of events would be eliminated then...gymnastics, diving, ski jump, nordic, snowboarding, not to mention the skating.

[Lynda-WA]

IMO judged events are fair. All of the participants know that there is an element of human judgement involved and everything can't be on a complete level playing field.
Even the events like skiing aren't completely fair to all participants. Some draw a number that has them skiing on newer snow, others after it has ruts driven into it. Same thing with any of the snow and ice sports. Time of day, number of competators before you, and weather can all impact the conditions you are competing under.
DH worked at the olympics last year when they were doing some of the preliminary runs. He said some of the skiers had a bad break because it started snowing during the runs. I think it was for tryout?
Even for a team sport like hockey there is an element of luck. A team can wind up playing the hardest teams right in a row and get eliminated. If they played a hard team then an easier one they may have had time to rest and be fresher when time to play the next hard team.