2012 Olympics (spoilers for tape-delayed events)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Karine Sergerie, a member of the Canadian taekwondo team, has the best tattoo of any Olympian:

[yovargas]

I don't think javelin is a good example...Javelin throwing (well, all the throwing events) is so specialized that the best in the world have to devote ALL their time to that implement.

But that's exactly why I used Javelin throwing as my example. I'm not sure how you would even begin to compare the accomplishments of the all-time greatest Javelin thrower with the all-time greatest swimmer but medal count would be a completely unfair yardstick precisely because of this.

xpost on the awesome tattoo

[halplm]

I agree that there is plently of blame to go around, but I saw some of the footage of one of the matches and I literally was almost sick. I had to turn it off. That is not what the Olympics is about.

I agree, it's not right.


I had seen that tatoo as well. It's pretty awesome.

[nerdanel]

I have to walk back what I said earlier. I decided that I wasn't comfortable trying to defend any person's standing as "greatest Olympian" because of the differences between the sports. As I said to yov earlier elsewhere, IME, inexperience with pursuit X rarely improves the quality of the opinions expressed about pursuit X, and I'm too inexperienced with every sport other than swimming to feel comfortable expressing an opinion on how the sports should be compared.

I got to thinking about gymnastics, and how to my knowledge no female gymnast has ever won the Olympic all-around twice. (Nadia won gold in 1976 and silver in 1980, and that's about as close to repeating the feat as anyone has come - AFAIK. Correct me if that's wrong.) Imagine hypothetically that a gymnast did that twice ... or thrice. It would be absolutely mindblowing; thrice would *definitely* be unprecedented, and I think in certain senses would start to rival Phelps' achievement. In some senses, it would be more impressive: gymnastics takes such a phenomenal toll on the body that even staying in the sport at the international elite level through three Olympics is rare. But in another sense, swimming in a seven or eight event program like Michael Phelps and Missy Franklin do, with the all-out exhaustion that putting in maximal effort more than twenty times (prelims, semis, and finals, except for the 400m+ events, which require only two swims each) in a particular week induces ... is different in its onerous impact on the body than competing in an Olympic gymnastics meet (which usually requires fewer appearances and does not require the same level of cardio exertion and subsequent exhaustion.)

I feel a lot of frustration when people don't appreciate the nuances and difficulties of competitive swimming. (E.g., because Missy Franklin pulled off a simply unheard-of feat in qualifying for the 200 free final ~ 15 minutes before winning Olympic gold in the 100 back - something that even Michael Phelps marveled at and indicated that he'd never even attempted - a lot of ignorant non-swimmers are now claiming that swimming isn't so difficult because it's possible to compete at the world level in two events with a fifteen-minute recovery time. ) But there's no way for me to make the argument that the greatest Olympic swimmer of all time (thus far, but give Missy Franklin a few years...) is the greatest Olympic athlete of all time without walking all over other sports and probably sounding just as ignorant about their nuances and difficulties. So I'll settle for Michael Phelps being the best Olympic swimmer of all time and hang out to hope that Missy Franklin outdoes him in due course.

[halplm]

I don't think javelin is a good example...Javelin throwing (well, all the throwing events) is so specialized that the best in the world have to devote ALL their time to that implement.

But that's exactly why I used Javelin throwing as my example. I'm not sure how you would even begin to compare the accomplishments of the all-time greatest Javelin thrower with the all-time greatest swimmer but medal count would be a completely unfair yardstick precisely because of this.

xpost on the awesome tattoo

You can't compare the "all-time greatest swimmer" to the "all-time greatest Javelin thrower" because you're comparing a single event to an entire venue. That's like comparing the "all-time greatest backstroker" to the "all time greatest sprinter."

That's my point. There are lots of great accomplishments at the olympics. Sometimes just finishing a race is a great accomplishment. Sometimes just walking in the opening ceremony is. Certainly winning a medal is.

When discussing the "greatest olympian of all time," there are plenty of different standards you could use, but many of them are subjective. In terms of objective measurements there are fewer, but the most obvious is how many times you've won.

Using that as your measuring stick doesn't diminish any of the other accomplishments made by olympians, it's just the most obvious comparison to make when the goal of most of the olympians is to win.

On the other hand, when you say "number of medals" isn't a valid measuring stick of "greatness" at the olympics you ARE diminishing the accomplishments of the people that win a lot of medals.

[yovargas]

On the other hand, when you say "number of medals" isn't a valid measuring stick of "greatness" at the olympics you ARE diminishing the accomplishments of the people that win a lot of medals.

Well, jeez, it's not like if winning even one medal of any color isn't an astonishing and great feat. I'm just saying that there might be some other person who's completed something even more amazing and "great" than Phelps but, due to the nature of how the sports are, doesn't necessarily have as many medals as Phelps. nel gives a good example of the kind of stuff that makes this difficult when she says "to my knowledge no female gymnast has ever won the Olympic all-around twice". There might be some other sport where simply getting gold twice is totally unheard of and somebody doing it would be even more amazing than Phelps getting his bouquet of medals.

[Lalaith]

My cat is enjoying watching men's gymnastics.




(Ignore the goofy setup we have right now. I'm waiting for my dad to refurbish his parents' TV console which will serve as our entertainment center.)

[Elentári]

On the other hand, when you say "number of medals" isn't a valid measuring stick of "greatness" at the olympics you ARE diminishing the accomplishments of the people that win a lot of medals.

Well, jeez, it's not like if winning even one medal of any color isn't an astonishing and great feat. I'm just saying that there might be some other person who's completed something even more amazing and "great" than Phelps but, due to the nature of how the sports are, doesn't necessarily have as many medals as Phelps. nel gives a good example of the kind of stuff that makes this difficult when she says "to my knowledge no female gymnast has ever won the Olympic all-around twice". There might be some other sport where simply getting gold twice is totally unheard of and somebody doing it would be even more amazing than Phelps getting his bouquet of medals.

With due respect to Kim Rhodes' achievement, and in reference to Redgrave, I would have thought defending your title, (ie gaining Gold) at five consecutive games in an endurance sport (rowing) was a record pretty unlikely to be beaten...

[nerdanel]

With due respect to Kim Rhodes' achievement, and in reference to Redgrave, I would have thought defending your title, (ie gaining Gold) at five consecutive games in an endurance sport (rowing) was a record pretty unlikely to be beaten...

The tone of your post sounds like you are disagreeing with someone here, but I'm not sure who it is. In any event, I definitely agree that five consecutive golds in an endurance sport seems much more impressive to me than an event that involves firing a shotgun, whatever the skill level involved. At the risk of further revealing my biases (which should be obvious from the tone of the previous sentence) and/or ignorance, I have difficulty with participants in the latter event even being referred to as athletes, though I'm happy to hear anyone out who disagrees.

[Elentári]

Not disagreeing, nel, simply re-iterating my earlier post which appeared to get buried during the discussion on "Greatest Olympian Evvah"

Certainly Yov's remark:

As I said elsewhere, I think using number of medals won is a very unfair standard since most other Olympians don't compete in sports with so many events. Some largely unknown javelin thrower may have accomplished the most astonishing feats of athleticism ever, but since they only have the one event they'll never get to go home with as many medals and would therefore never qualify as that "great"?

would back up my assertion that winning Gold consecutively in your chosen sport over 20 years could be considered greater than Phelps current achievements...but of course there is surely no way that a swimmer could sustain their career to equal Redgrave's record even if they restricted themselves to one discipline.

I also agree that some distinction should be made between "athletes" and "sportsperson."

[nerdanel]

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying.

would back up my assertion that winning Gold consecutively in your chosen sport over 20 years could be considered greater than Phelps current achievements...but of course there is surely no way that a swimmer could sustain their career to equal Redgrave's record even if they restricted themselves to one discipline.

Really? Dara Torres of the US has appeared in five separate Olympics. She did not equal Redgrave's record, but her longevity suggests that it is possible for a swimmer to, at some point in the future, contest Redgrave's record.

[halplm]

To paraphrase a recent post of one nerdanel on facebook:

Before disparaging a skeet shooters accomplishments, answer these questions... could you....
(1) even hit a clay pigeon traveling at 60 mph with a shotgun (2) hit a non-laughable number of them with only one shot at each; (3) be capable of qualifying for their country's Olympic Trials in even one shooting event; or (4) could win even one Olympic medal of any color in any event.

Shooting is a different athletic skill than swimming or running or jumping and bouncing around, but it is no less athletic. It is more a matter of training your body to relax and focus, but that is a matter of physical training and expertise. In non-target shooting, it's also a matter of reaction, speed, and accuracy.

So don't start calling into question the validity of shooting events for some unknown reason.

The numer of athletes that have medaled in 5 consecutive olympic games is incredibly short. I think there are 6 now? Three are German lugers, There's Redgrave, and now Rhode. I don't recall the other, if there is one. Certainly such an achievement is amazing, but then again, while the list is short... it is still a list. Phelps now stands alone.

If you want to set your standard for "greatest" as who can defend their Gold medal for the longest time, then Redgrave stands alone, but that is, as I said quite some time earlier today, rather arbitrary.

The reason people will gravitate to a definition of "greatest olympian" that results in Phelps's name being at the top of the list is because it's the simplest definition. The goal of competition at the olympics is to win a medal, or if you wanted to be more specific, a gold medal. So whoever has the most medals, or gold medals is the most successful at the most fundamental purpose of the competition.

Phelps now has the most medals surpassing Larisa Latynina. He has the most gold medals, and has for quite some time, as he has 15 and four people have 9, Larisa Latynina, Paavo Nurmi of Finland, Mark Spitz and Carl Lewis of the US. Even if you want to throw out relay events, as if somehow a team medal isn't as much of an accomplishment as an individual one, he has the most golds at 9. If you arbitrarily limit yourself to any color, but only individual, you can put Latynina back on top with 14, and Nikolai Andrianov has 12 to Phelps's 11...

Anyone can admire whoever they want for whatever reasons they want, and claim the person they admire is "the greatest." I don't really care . But if you're looking for an objective definition that encompasses all olympians, then really the only thing you can ask is how many times did they win.

[nerdanel]

I didn't disparage the accomplishments of shooters of shotguns; I just questioned whether "athlete" was the right term to refer to such people (especially after having googled Kim Rhode and noted that her physique is significantly other than one would typically associate with international elite athletic achievement.) "Training your body to relax and focus" is something that we do in yoga, too, but that doesn't make even very dedicated and talented yogis into athletes (although athletes can do yoga, they are not athletes based on their yoga.)

[Alatar]

Vault is my least favorite apparatus. It happens so fast and it's just scary. Not the "WTF did she do??" scary that all gymnastics is but "OMG!! I'm gonna watch her DIE!!!" scary. So it really says something that, when I finally found footage of Maroney's vault yestreday I watched it over and over and over. I hate the vault. But that was just pretty.

And, unlike so many of her other vaults, she stuck the landing. On a broken toe no less. I hope she can do it again for the individual finals because someone who can do something like that on a broken bone totally deserves to bring home two gold medals. One for the vault, the other for the toe.

What about a broken kneecap?

http://youtu.be/Gq-C5-vIim8

[Elentári]

Awesome, Al!

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying.

would back up my assertion that winning Gold consecutively in your chosen sport over 20 years could be considered greater than Phelps current achievements...but of course there is surely no way that a swimmer could sustain their career to equal Redgrave's record even if they restricted themselves to one discipline.

Really? Dara Torres of the US has appeared in five separate Olympics. She did not equal Redgrave's record, but her longevity suggests that it is possible for a swimmer to, at some point in the future, contest Redgrave's record.

I stand corrected, then! But it appears unusual for swimmers to stay at the top of their game for so long.

However, such is the nature of swimming, and indeed gymnastics, that it is possible to win more medals in one Games than in other athletic disciplines...even the great Carl Lewis excelled in 3 different disciplines (plus 2 relays) at any Games, compared to Phelps who takes part in up to 8 displines in the pool.

Actually, nel, is it unusual for swimmers to be able to excel over 100, 200 and 400m like it is for sprinters to make the change up to 400m?

[yovargas]

I didn't disparage the accomplishments of shooters of shotguns; I just questioned whether "athlete" was the right term to refer to such people

Heh, I am reminded that there's been a certain movement in video games to call competitive gaming "e-sports" (I hate this term) and I've heard some of these people called athletes. While not denying that some of these people have insane skills, not everything that requires great skill requires great athleticism. (This thought isn't directed at any particular Olympic sport as I have no idea what goes into being a great shooter or whatnot.)

[Alatar]

For anyone who's interested (not Vison obviously!) here's Ireland's best hope of a gold.

http://www.boxinginsider.com/more-headl ... -continue/

[Frelga]

I didn't disparage the accomplishments of shooters of shotguns; I just questioned whether "athlete" was the right term to refer to such people (especially after having googled Kim Rhode and noted that her physique is significantly other than one would typically associate with international elite athletic achievement.) "Training your body to relax and focus" is something that we do in yoga, too, but that doesn't make even very dedicated and talented yogis into athletes (although athletes can do yoga, they are not athletes based on their yoga.)

If the physical build is the criteria for determining if someone is an "athlete", then I understand why they dropped baseball.

[vison]

I agree that there is plently of blame to go around, but I saw some of the footage of one of the matches and I literally was almost sick. I had to turn it off. That is not what the Olympics is about.

What struck me was that the Olympics official said, "That's not what people pay for."

Oh? It might have been better if he'd said it wasn't "sporting", that it didn't live up to the Olympics ideal.

Dressage is on right now. I hope anthriel can see it or is taping it.

[halplm]

I didn't disparage the accomplishments of shooters of shotguns; I just questioned whether "athlete" was the right term to refer to such people (especially after having googled Kim Rhode and noted that her physique is significantly other than one would typically associate with international elite athletic achievement.) "Training your body to relax and focus" is something that we do in yoga, too, but that doesn't make even very dedicated and talented yogis into athletes (although athletes can do yoga, they are not athletes based on their yoga.)

Well, then football players aren't athletes, curlers aren't athletes, baseball players aren't, golfers aren't, archers aren't, shot put or hammer throwers aren't... hmm... who else doesn't fit your personal preference on athletic physique?

I'm sorry to say, but that line of thinking is fairly disgusting to me, and thoroughly disrespects a great number of great athletes because they don't "look right."