Pointless Rant of the Week
Figure skating and ice dancing are NOT sports.
There. I've said it.
They aren't sports any more than oil painting, cello playing, or ballet dancing are sports.
For something to be a sport, it needs to involve an athletic feat (or series of feats) that can be measured in an objective fashion.
You can have a COMPETITION involving figure skating if you like. But in the course of that competition, someone will have to be a judge, and - while that judge may look at some technical issues that are relatively objective - that judge's final decision will be based on a subjective opinion about the artistic merit of what you are doing.
When you win because someone made a subjective observation about the artistic merit of something you just did, that is not a SPORT. I don't care how much athleticism was involved - what you did is not ultimately an athletic accomplishment. It is an accomplishment in creative expression.
We KNOW why Bodie Miller stinks (and was grossly overhyped). He was .42 seconds off of the top run on the downhill, and he missed a gate in the combined. He then crashed and burned in a variety of other ways, all of which are directly, objectively measurable.
We know which hockey teams won which games because there were goals to be counted.
The victors in figure skating and ice dancing competitions can't make the same claim. In the end, the main reason they got their gold, silver, and bronze CDs-with-ribbons-looped-through-them was because someone LIKED them better than they did the other competitors. Where's the sport in that?
Imagine: in early February, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks meet for the Superbowl. They play 60 minutes of football. Then, after the game, the players go sit on the sidelines and hold flowers while they look at the scoreboard with nervous excitement.
The Steelers get good points for technical merit, but OH, LOOK - the football judges liked the Seahawks more because they appeared to be more graceful and intense during the course of the game. SEAHAWKS WIN!!
C'mon! Where's the fun in that?
I say this not because I am a sports purist, but because I am bitter and resentful that, out of a typical four hour Olympic broadcast, three hours, fifty-eight minutes of NBC's air time was devoted to figure skating or ice dancing. This left only two minutes for real sports. And what with all of the press conferences wherein various members of the US speed skating team whined about each other, there was often only a half minute left for anything else.
Coming soon: Why NASCAR isn't a sport, either (followed by an apology to figure skating and racing fans the world over, coupled with desperate plea to stop sending profanity-laced emails)
Technorati Tags: figure skating, sports, pointless rant, nascar
There. I've said it.
They aren't sports any more than oil painting, cello playing, or ballet dancing are sports.
For something to be a sport, it needs to involve an athletic feat (or series of feats) that can be measured in an objective fashion.
You can have a COMPETITION involving figure skating if you like. But in the course of that competition, someone will have to be a judge, and - while that judge may look at some technical issues that are relatively objective - that judge's final decision will be based on a subjective opinion about the artistic merit of what you are doing.
When you win because someone made a subjective observation about the artistic merit of something you just did, that is not a SPORT. I don't care how much athleticism was involved - what you did is not ultimately an athletic accomplishment. It is an accomplishment in creative expression.
We KNOW why Bodie Miller stinks (and was grossly overhyped). He was .42 seconds off of the top run on the downhill, and he missed a gate in the combined. He then crashed and burned in a variety of other ways, all of which are directly, objectively measurable.
We know which hockey teams won which games because there were goals to be counted.
The victors in figure skating and ice dancing competitions can't make the same claim. In the end, the main reason they got their gold, silver, and bronze CDs-with-ribbons-looped-through-them was because someone LIKED them better than they did the other competitors. Where's the sport in that?
Imagine: in early February, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks meet for the Superbowl. They play 60 minutes of football. Then, after the game, the players go sit on the sidelines and hold flowers while they look at the scoreboard with nervous excitement.
The Steelers get good points for technical merit, but OH, LOOK - the football judges liked the Seahawks more because they appeared to be more graceful and intense during the course of the game. SEAHAWKS WIN!!
C'mon! Where's the fun in that?
I say this not because I am a sports purist, but because I am bitter and resentful that, out of a typical four hour Olympic broadcast, three hours, fifty-eight minutes of NBC's air time was devoted to figure skating or ice dancing. This left only two minutes for real sports. And what with all of the press conferences wherein various members of the US speed skating team whined about each other, there was often only a half minute left for anything else.
Coming soon: Why NASCAR isn't a sport, either (followed by an apology to figure skating and racing fans the world over, coupled with desperate plea to stop sending profanity-laced emails)
Technorati Tags: figure skating, sports, pointless rant, nascar
posted by Matt at Monday, February 27, 2006
4 Comments:
I agree wholeheartedly about the "not a sport" thing. As someone who has his own highly developed rules for what is and is not a sport, I feel ya.
That being said, however, who would you rather watch for 58 minutes? Tanith Belbin, or a sweaty, be-bearded Ben Roethlisberger?
I like that idea for football! They could award extra points for cuter uniforms - teams with those dark brown pants, ugh! - and most interesting names. (What is that one guy? Is it Fua-matu-ma-a-fala?) I liked him. My sister chose her whole fantasy team last year based on looks, and she didn't do too bad.
Honestly, it's women. Once you let women make any kind of decisions in the Olympics, you have to deal with this stuff. And I love watching the skaters and ice dancers. The races, not so much.
This confirms everything that I have ever suspected about how couples agree on TV programs and/or movies: One will watch something that the other suggests only if there is some eye candy in it for them.
"I'd love to watch your football team play a game, honey. They have such good...er...tight ends."
Or...
"That figure skater is great, sweetie. In fact, I was just admiring her...er...form."
This phenomemon also explans why a number of otherwise mediocre shows become so popular, including Dancing with the Stars and Friends.
Funny thing about this is that after watching enough movies about dancing I finally "get" Ice Dancing. Previously this looked to me like a haven for couples skaters, one of whom couldn't throw and/or land. Given my poor aptitude for dancing, I can't imagine doing the same thing at 15mph on skates. It's undoubtedly a physical competition.
And when we start drawing lines, why is punting part of a sport? You can't hit the punter, he does ONE thing for most teams, and usually he's not a strong tackler. The job is in football, but it's no more a "sport activity" than ice dancing. When's the last time you heard of the classic punter physique? My favorite punter was Reggie Roby, who played at Iowa and later for the Dolphins, he looked like somebody from the O-line who got assigned to fill in for the punter one day. He'd kick the ball so high it had frost on it when it came down.
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