Citius, Altius, Fortius

"Let me remind you,

You are the favoured few.

You constitute what is without doubt,

The most powerful athletic force

Ever to leave these shores.

You are to face the world's best.

Brown and yellow, white and black,

Young and ardent as yourselves,

Fleet of foot and strong of limb,

From every civilized nation

On the face of the earth.

I have no doubt

You will acquit yourselves honourably

And with distinction."

This is what the Olympics should be about. The pinnacle of human athletic competition. The Vancouver games were wonderful, but they fall short of this ideal. The Olympic games should be about principles, both those of peace and global unity, and those of athletic achievement. There were flashes of this all throughout the Vancouver games, and that is what made us love them. Let us embrace the ideal in full in the future...

Red, White and Controversy

Almost exactly four years ago, I wrote a post called The Red Glasses. It was brought on by a beautiful girl who I became friends with, a member of Canada's national synchronized swimming team. The premise of the post was to think about whether some sports were better than others. I came up with nine criteria, which I still think hold true, that contribute to how a sport should be ranked.

Four years later, Canada is justifiably proud to host our third Olympic Games. Every Canadian I know felt something when Alex Bilodeau brought Canada our first home gold. However, with the olympics has come a lot of debate about what the olympics is and what it represents. Many people, including myself, think that the olympics have become somewhat bloated, and that the value of an olympic medal is somewhat devalued by the number of them available.

Purists, like Trent, will go so far as to advocate extreme change. What Trent has said to me suggests that he believes that all team sports should be out of the olympics, along with all judged sports and sports that are not available to the broader world, ones that Trent would characterize as "elitist". That criteria would basically eliminate the entire winter olympics, leaving a bare-bones olympics that basically would include track & field, swimming, combat sports and possibly rowing, cycling and racquet sports.

I am not willing to go nearly so far. I think that Trent's reforms would marginalize the olympics, and endanger the primacy of the olympics as the premier world sporting competition. However, I will not shy away from controversy. I want to propose, in this post, the most radical changes to the olympics that I would support. I want to emphasize that sentence, because the changes that I might consider ideal would possibly fall short of what I will propose. However, I want to make the point here by being controversial.

Just as a reminder, the ranking characteristics I proposed in 2006 were:

1. Degree of worldwide participation

2. Degree of concentrated participation
3. Results come primarily from the differences in athletic skill of ther participants
4. Level of knowledge of the sport and its rules among the general population
5. Easy to understand and participate in
6. Level of national rivalry in the sport
7. Level of fitness throughout the sport
8. Intensity of training required to excel
9. Use of judges or other subjective methods of evaluation (I believe this inherently worsens a sport, because it becomes a matter of opinion)

I will consider these criteria in my evaluation. I will also consider that I believe the olympics are the pinnacle of world sporting competition, and should remain as such.

If you look at the Beijing games, there were 300 medal events. In Vancouver, there are 86. This amounts to 1158 olympic medals awarded per cycle. This, from my point of view, is clearly excessive. Yet, many of the world's most popular sports are not even included. Golf and Rugby sevens are scheduled to be added in the next summer games, and Rugby makes sense. Golf on the other hand, is not primarily decided by the physical abilities of the athletes, therefore it should be left out.

Additionally, cricket, the second most popular sport in the world, is not included in the olympics. The traditional main objection to cricket is that test cricket, the traditional format, can take several days to complete. However, a shorter variant, called Twenty20 cricket, has recently become popular, and that should certainly be included in the olympics.

That takes us to 304 summer olympic events. Far too many, if you ask me. The first priority is to rid the olympics of the events that are not competitive enough or well-known enough to be included in the pinnacle of world sport competition. Additionally, the sports where the result is not primarily determined by the physical fitness of the (human) athletes. These could include the following:

Trampoline: 2 medal events

Equestrian: 6 medal events

Shooting: 15 medal events

Archery: 4 medal events

Racewalking: 3 medal events

Table Tennis: 4 medal events

Sailing: 11 medal events

Modern Pentathlon: 2 medal events

Fencing: 10 medal events

Rhythmic Gymnastics: 2 medal events

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That reduces the summer program to 245 events. The next step is to remove the events that are too subjective. Most judged sports are far too prone to individual judges' opinion. The sole exception is gymnastics, where by all accounts the judging is extremely specific. Regardless, it is impractical to take gymnastics out of the olympics, because along with swimming and track, it is one of the founding events of the summer olympics. The following events, however, could be removed easily:

Synchronized swimming: 2 events

Synchronized diving: 4 events

That gets us to 239 olympic events. The next discussion is of the events that allow multiple weight classes. I understand that these sports are usually split this way in competition, but I feel that it allows lesser sports to have a huge number of medals, which I believe devalues the medals awarded in the other events. Usain Bolt's height is a clear advantage for him, yet the shorter men still have to race him. Shotput too, does not have weight classes. Therefore, I propose that the following events abolish (more controversial, I would certainly also go for a reduction) their weight classes, and have a single olympic competition:

Wrestling: eliminates 15 medal categories

Weightlifting: eliminates 13 medal categories

Boxing: eliminates 10 medal categories

Judo: eliminates 12 medal categories

Taekwondo: eliminates 6 medal categories

This would get the number of medal events down to 183. The final adjustment that could be made to the summer olympics is to move some of the indoor events that are traditionally contested during the winter in cold climates. If these events were moved to the winter olympics, it would raise the quality of the winter games, and help reduce the number of events in the summer. The following sports could have this action taken:

Basketball: 2 medal events

Weightlifting: 2 medal events

Boxing: 1 medal event

Judo: 2 medal events

Taekwondo: 2 medal events

Handball: 2 medal events

Badminton: 5 medal events

Wrestling: 3 medal events

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This would leave 164 medal events in the summer olympics. The breakdown of these events would be as follows:

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Track & Field: 44 medal events

Swimming: 34 medal events

Gymnastics: 14 medal events

Cycling (various kinds): 18 medal events

Canoe/Kayak: 16 medal events

Rowing: 14 medal events

Diving: 4 medal events

Tennis: 4 medal events

Volleyball: 4 medal events

Water Polo: 2 medal events

Field Hockey: 2 medal events

Association Football: 2 medal events

Triathalon: 2 medal events

Twenty20 Cricket: 2 medal events

Rugby: 2 medal events

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I believe that this selection of events, with additions as new sports come to prominence (I'd personally like to see an Ironman in the olympics), would provide an olympic games with all the grandeur and scale of the current games, while bringing the games much closer to being the pinnacle of human athletics. An olympic gold would say to everyone "I am one of the world's best athletes," and "I took on the best from all around the world, in a fair competition, and won". That would be a great day.

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As for the winter olympics, the 86 medal events from Vancouver would be joined by the 19 newcomers from the summer games. I also think that squash and men's mixed martial arts, both popular and exciting sports, should be added. I would also be sympathetic to additional combat sports, being that I wiped out most of their medals earlier in the post.

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This gives us a starting point of 108 medal events for the winter games. Following the same approach as with the summer games, the first step to fixing the winter games is to take out those events that are not competitive or do not require physical fitness. This pains me to do, because I love curling, but it simply doesn't meet the criteria and has to go. The events I would endorse removing are:

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Curling: 2 medal events

Women's Hockey: 1 medal event

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The next, and most arduous task, is to eliminate the events that are too subjective due to judging. Figure skating will be the most controversial here, because it is a core event of the winter olympics and has been around a long time. However, I am of the opinion that the judging is simply too subjective to make it a fair competition at this point.

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I also think that there are some changes required to avoid eliminating certain events. Moguls events should be changed to eliminate the judged component, and become a simple race. Additionally, the Ski Jumping portion of Nordic Combined should be replaced by an alpine event, most likely downhill.

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The judging-dependent events that should be removed are:

Figure Skating: 4 medal events
Snowboard half-pipe: 2 medal events
Freestyle skiing aerials: 2 medal events
Ski Jumping: 3 medal events

That leaves 94 medal events in a more diverse, more fair and more athletic winter games. The total number of olympic medals awarded per cycle under my plan would fall from 1158 to 774, which I believe would restore much of the lost exclusivity of an olympic medal.

These changes will never come to pass for political reasons (figure skating is too popular), but I honestly think they would make the olympics much better. Let the controversy begin.

The Red Glasses (Jan. 28, 2006)

Athletic achivement is a funny thing. I think most athletes that are heavily involved in a sport consider their sport to be "better" than other sports. But is there such a thing as a "better" sport? Which is more prestigeous, a stanley cup or a world cup trophy or an olympic gold? Is a summer olympic gold worth more than a winter olympic one? Is an olympic gold earned in a quasi-event (curling, trampolining etc) worth as much as the 100m title? Can you compare sports?

It would seem that making Team Canada in hockey is a considerably greater achivement than making Team Canada in cricket. Does that make hockey better? What about in other countries, where anyone who has played canadian junior could walk on to the national ice hockey team but making the cricket team is considerably harder? Who is the greatest athlete of all time? Tough questions.

Historically, the things people have used to differentiate one sport from another have been widely varied. However, they do provide a starting point. One of the biggest determinates is the level of competition. Usually this is based on the number of people in a population who play the sport. Soccer is often cited as the world's greatest sport for this reason. More participation makes for more natural skill through sheer chance, it also brings more money, better coaches and more prestige for the winners. Sports traditionally considered as "worse" sports lack these things. Trampolining is a prime example.

The second major determinant of good sports often comes from the level of "athletic" prowess required to excel. The defining feature of a sport as opposed to a game or a contest is that it requires physical exertion. I dont think anyone would deny that running the 800m is considerably more physically taxing than a game of curling. Does this make track a better sport?

Another determinant of good sport is the method of evaluation. In my view there are essentially five categories here. In sport, the object is to beat others. The order of placing is determined in several ways. The first way is primarily through luck. This is often the case is card games, which is why they are not usually considered sports. The second way is by measuring the precision of something. This is the prevailing order in golf, archery etc. The third category is sports where the outcome is decided by judges, such as in diving, figure skating and gymnastics. The fourth, and most prevalent category, are sports where completing a certain action, such as putting a ball in a net, accumulates points. Finally there is the oldest category of sports, those where people simply attempt to go faster, higher or further than their opponents. Track & Field, swimming, horse racing, auto racing and speed skating are the main sports in that category.

I think the first category is inherently less prestigious than the others, but that still leaves a myraid of sports that are not neccesarily equal. To find an order from among them, I think the following criteria have to be evaluated.
1. degree of worldwide participation
2. degree of concentrated participation
3. results come primarily from the differences in athletic skill of ther participants
4. level of knowledge of the sport and its rules among the general population
5. easy to understand and participate in
6. level of national rivalry in the sport
7. level of fitness throughout the sport
8. intensity of training required to excel
9. Use of judges or other subjective methods of evaluation (I believe this inherently worsens a sport, because it becomes a matter of opinion)

...i think these need to be weighted, some are obviously more critical than others, but I think they are all important. I guess this means I do think some sports are "better" than others, but i am not sure if that changes the value of success. I would rather have an olympic gold in swimming or track than one in snowboarding or trampolining, but at the same time, an olympic gold is an olympic gold. Maybe a tenth criteria needs to be added..degree of prevalence at international, multi-sport competitions...a sport that is in the olympics is better than one thats not? im not sure if i agree with that..and what about soccer, its in the olympics, but the olympics is by design not an important tournament.