Who likes heavy medals?

[Ishkur]

As the Olympic Games dawn upon us, let`s take a moment to reflect in the spirit of the spectacle: the sacred drive for productive achievement, the beauty and grace of the human form, the endless pushing of the limits of human capability, and the thrill and honour of competition.

Okay,...
Full Article

[thekrueg]

Let’s see…..

1. The only difference between the two methods of calculating medals won you listed in your post, is that Canada gets a ton more gold medals (where are you from again?). This is not fair to all other countries who might not have the knowledge and background to train for the team sports. Besides should some sorry sack hockey player who made the team as an alternate really be considered as winning a gold medal (I’m assuming that the entire team gets medals, I could be wrong)?
2. So you think they should remove all the events that really have no other major tournaments, no other time to shine? I though you complained about how NBC doesn’t show enough of these events… now you want to get rid of them? I have an idea, let’s just make the winter Olympics a big hockey tournament!
3. If you remove drug testing you will open the door for hard-core steroid use. Once you allow people to freely use the more common enhancers, the line between these drugs and the powerful (illegal) ones will become unrecognizable. The Olympics have been and should be about the natural athlete, and the hard work and training it takes to condition your body to compete against other finely tuned individuals. Allow drugs, any drugs, and your going to have a bunch of psychotic, unbalanced muscle heads competing. If you ask me, that is the opposite of what the Olympics is all about.

4. We don’t need to watch the Olympics to know that the world hates us! We have the evening news for that.

[Blakey_Blue]

"Redundant events are stupid. The guy who won the 50m freestyle will invariably be in the 100m and 200m as well. Why are those extra events even there?"

Normally Ish I like reading your articles...but please stick to ranting on something you actually have a clue about. You clearly have no idea as to the specific training that goes into the different swimming events. For the record, neither of the 2 American men that qualified for the 50 freestyle are swimming the 200 as well. They are two entirely different events that require entirely different training and even energy systems. Each different stroke and distance in swimming require a different focuses and strengths and an athlete such as Michael Phelps shows more athletic prowess in being able to excel to such elite levels in so many different events than any hockey player does by being able to excel on both sides of the ice. Just because it does not involve ice or a puck (or Canadians in the medal count) does not mean that it is at all redundant.

[Ishkur]

Apparently, my sarcasm is too subtle for some people.

This is sportsrant, right? That's my problem. I was ranting too much, and making whimsical observations too little.

[Blakey_Blue]

sorry ish, you're right, i did take that too seriously. i'm a bit defensive when i see people ripping on my sport just because so many people have not the slightest clue about the training and commitment involved. my bad.

[Ishkur]

I thought the graphic awarding Canada an insane amount of gold medals simply for the hell of it would've tipped you off, but..........I guess not, eh?

[Blakey_Blue]

I saw swimming and redundant...that's all i needed to get good and riled up

[Ishkur]

Seriously though.......the point is made, don't you think?

How a simple change in distance can create an entirely new swimming discipline, but the same isn't applied to other sports? That seems dishonest, and heavily biases the Olympics towards swimming and running. Those two tasks hog 2/3 of the entire medal haul, and the fact that they allow countries to send MULTIPLE athletes to sweep said events is disingenuous.