Yeah, it's funny - about the only sport without judging is the one many people don't want in the Games: golf.

Pretty much everything else, aside from straight racing (in the pool or track) will always involve humand judgment - tennis, football, basketball, baseball, gymnastics, etc.

On the radio yesterday, Adam Spencer was talking about medals divided by population divided by GDP, which I thought was quite an interesting - lets just say all the top countries disappeared :)
-----Added 19/8/2008 at 07 : 26 : 03-----
That's not really true - even in local competitions you are scored by a marker, who makes judgements during the event. Professional events have marshalls whose job it is to make calls on the (quite a thick book) rules of golf.

Hardly - officials rarely have to make calls in golf. Once every 3 or 4 rounds or so for a PGA pro - and usually, the pro already knows the call, he just brings an official in to cover his butt. The rules are very clear and the official is not judging a play in action, like in football or hockey - the calls are merely where a ball gets dropped or if an obstruction is moveable or not. The impact of an official in golf is negligble - I only recall one major screw up by an official at PGA level: When Tiger had his ball behind a boulder and asked the official if it was a moveable obstruction. The official said "if you can move it, go right ahead" - so Tiger pulled a few guys out of his huge gallery and moved the 500 pound boulder!

highthief, I'm going to chose to ignore your obvious error of omitting track and swimming. The clock is the clock is the clock.

But I generally agree about judged sports - diving, gymnastics, synchronized swimming, etc. They're difficult competitions, and the competitors are great athletes, but those aren't sport.

In honor of MP winning all the gold.


http://content.ytmnd.com/content/7/7...df2bfab444.gif

http://content.ytmnd.com/content/d/3...c873e850bd.gif

http://i33.tinypic.com/293u0bp.jpg


http://i36.tinypic.com/23qyu5z.jpg

I think you'll find I said "Pretty much everything else, aside from straight racing (in the pool or track) will always involve human judgment"

I don't think that judged sports aren't sports - that's a very narrow view to take. It's simply a different type of sport.

Darts, BTW, is another one that some want to see in the games - no judging involved, takes extreme skill, but no one wants to see darts in the games either.

i do!

on the topic of the opening post.. the worst olympics..im starting to believe i may have been wrong..


looks like the weathers cleared up..

we had phelpsie win 8 gold with 7 world records
we have usain bolt win the 100m/200m in 2 world records...

we have the redeem team on track to re-take gold again

lets see .. we have a fair bit yet to go

Seriously?

You wanna see Phil Taylor duking it out with John Part or Barney between beers? I love playing darts but I'd hate to see it at the Games.

You gotta remember dlish is an Aussie - we'd watch crab races if it was on TV ;) (and probably have side bets as well)

i'd rather watch darts than shooting (not that they show that too much). i think many americans would like to get in on that crab racing action, btw!

Veni
Vidi
Vici

Congrats to the Men's U.S. basketball team.

right on the money spin.

yeah i would.. i love darts..playing and watching. i do find it a lot more entertaining than say gymnatics with the ribbon thingi dancing on the floor - rythmic gymnastics??

windsurfing would be the ultimate sport.

camel racing would definately come 2nd.

crab racing third.

the games ended well..not as bad as i had intended. the protests died down i think...

er... were there any protests in China? I had heard you had to apply for a protest, and that was basically the government's way of skimming info about future troublemakers, and that no protests were ever approved or even staged.

From a pure sports perspective, I'd say these were one of the better olympics in terms of that. From a perspective of trying to get China to progress on its human rights, I'd say epic fail on that part. Not that the IOC really seem to care about that...

There were protests... you just didn't get to see them. And all of the protesters were deported or jailed.

I was pleasantly surprised by these Games. I still think that the Chinese got incredibly lucky with the weather, but all the logistics went off perfectly.

I was impressed by the games. China did a great job, and should be proud. There wasn't any major events or problems and it was all about the athletics.

(I just hope they liked the better air quality and make some changes to their factories and power plants)