Is anybody into the Vancouver Winter Olympics?

[Peter W. Meek]

I've been recording (for time-shifting and commercial-skipping) the NBC broadcasts. I find it takes me about 45 minutes to watch a 3 hour show. I used to watch the CBC broadcasts straight through, even though I had recorded them. Better coverage material and less-annoying ads.

[Roy Hersh]

My wife commented last night on the enormous quantity and time of the advertisements vs. actual programming which seems like more than double the amount of a normal broadcast. I realize the investment to shoot the Olympics for a network must be extraordinary, but at least provide compelling coverage.

[Luc Gauthier]

Wednesday was kind to American Olympic participants.

So do you think Canada will win GOLD in men's or women's hockey?

My money's on the canadian women for gold .
As for the men , on paper , canada should win the gold .
However look what happens when you run into a hot goalie ( Canada only won 3-2 over the Swiss because of a hot goalie )
But then again , Canada lost to the Swiss in Turin Italy . ( Sometimes a team has your number ) .
Another factor to consider is Canada's defence is getting a little long in the tooth .
This could be a problem against swift skaters .

[Eric Menchen]

Have you ever been able to catch CBC broadcasts of the Olympics in the past? ...

I have not. I have a large satellite antenna still in a box in the basement that might allow me to do so, but I've not installed it; and given the weather here, probably won't do so before the Olympics are over.

[Roy Hersh]

Curling is one thing, but at least that is a "game" but can anybody please explain how in the world Ice Dancing is considered an Olympic SPORT?

[Derek T.]

My wife commented last night on the enormous quantity and time of the advertisements vs. actual programming which seems like more than double the amount of a normal broadcast. I realize the investment to shoot the Olympics for a network must be extraordinary, but at least provide compelling coverage.

If you can find a way of watching it on the UK version of the BBC there are no advertisements at all

This applies to all BBC programming as it is funded by a license fee paid by everyone who has a TV and has no commercial backing.

[Moses Botbol]

My wife commented last night on the enormous quantity and time of the advertisements vs. actual programming which seems like more than double the amount of a normal broadcast. I realize the investment to shoot the Olympics for a network must be extraordinary, but at least provide compelling coverage.

It's been like that for 20+ years. If it's not commercials, it's filler. I realize some filler is needed to personalize the competitors struggle to get here.

[Peter W. Meek]

I watched a long NBC broadcast the other day (I had recorded it) and found no actual Olympic competition at all (some qualifying) during the first 120 minutes. It was all talking heads, rehashes, medal ceremonies, human interest pieces, and other garbage/filler. The biathlon which followed this was pretty good, but NBC and their advertisers completely missed me for two valuable and irreplaceable weekend hours. I feel they cheated me and their advertisers.

I am recording all the curling from CNBC. Once again they are putting the ads during the action and broadcasting filler during breaks in the action.

[Peter W. Meek]

Curling is one thing, but at least that is a "game" but can anybody please explain how in the world Ice Dancing is considered an Olympic SPORT?

The Russian figure skater agrees with you. In fact he claims that anyone who doesn't do a quad in the competition is no sportsman and doesn't deserve to get a medal. Putin agrees and wants an investigation.

[Glenn E.]

I've gotten tired of the NBC broadcast in general, and not just because of the one-sidedness, but because there is so much fluff.

Yeah, that's the part I hate too.

I think that NBC does a decent job covering the events that most Americans are going to be interested in watching. They show Americans competing, a lot of Canadians competing, and other competitions when something interesting and/or exciting happens. Really... for the bulk of the TV viewing public in the US, that's exactly what they're going to want to see. Possibly minus the Canadians.

But the fluff pieces are getting really annoying. We do not need to see a new fluff piece every time you switch sports. In fact, if I were in charge of NBC, I'd limit it to one truly interesting fluff piece per night, and show it in prime time only. Do they seriously think that the people who are watching the broadcast in the middle of the day care AT ALL about the fluff pieces? NO. Those people are tuning in to WATCH THE OLYMPICS.

Also, a couple of their broadcasters are over-the-top. I love Scott Hamilton, but seriously... doood... take a Vicodin or something before you go on air. It's just Figure Skating.

[Glenn E.]

Curling is one thing, but at least that is a "game" but can anybody please explain how in the world Ice Dancing is considered an Olympic SPORT?

It's better than it used to be. Code of Points at least added some more technical difficulty to Ice Dancing routines.

I once read a set of definitions that explain various competitions, though of course no one uses these definitions. They should, though.

Sport. To be a sport, the activity must have two (or more) sides that compete head-to-head and simultaneously, which means that all competitors must be able to score (or otherwise progress toward winning) at any time. Scoring must be black and white - when presented with the rules of the game, the average person must be able to determine who has scored, when they have scored, how much they have scored, and ultimately who has won. Referees or judges, if present, only enforce the rules of the event, not determine the winner.

Game. Like a sport, except that the two sides take turns attempting to score or are otherwise constrained in ways that significantly separate and/or limit scoring.

Feat. A feat is like a sport except that there is no real head-to-head competition, or the head-to-head competition is merely a convenience.

Exhibition. If the event has judges who are needed to tell you who has won, then the event is an Exibition.

As it turns out, there really aren't very many exceptions to this list. Just about any competition you can think of fits pretty neatly into one of those categories.

So among popular "sports," Baseball is a game not a sport. Basketball and Football both straddle the line, but are more sport than game because the defense is capable of scoring rapidly in either case. More so in Basketball, but as the Super Bowl this year showed it also happens fairly frequently in Football as well. Soccer is like Basketball (just with a ton less scoring), so would also be a sport.

Volleyball used to be a game - teams could only score when they were serving - but the rules have changed and now every serve scores a point. Thus Volleyball is now a sport.

Track and Field, Swimming, and the Alpine Skiing events are all feats. Yes, they line up 8 people at a time for the 100-meter dash, but that's a formality. They don't need to run 8 people at once, they just do it to save time. The reality is that the competitors are only competing against the clock, and whoever does the best is proclaimed the winner.

Figure skating, gymnastics, half pipe, ski jumping, aerials... all exhibitions. (What, you didn't know that there's a "form" component to ski jumping results?) We have to wait for the judges to tell us who won. Figure skating's new Code of Points was a step toward becoming a feat, but the panel of judges does still determine the winner because each element of a skater's program is giving a rating that affects its value. If the judges only ruled on whether or not the element was completed correctly, then figure skating under Code of Points would be a feat.

Some events end up where you might not expect them. NASCAR is a sport, but horse racing is a feat. While it may seem like the point of both is to finish the race first, in NASCAR that's the only point. No one cares how long it took to finish the race, just who finished first. And every driver is constantly doing his or her best to be first - e.g. to make progress toward winning. Horse racing is timed - they keep track and event records - so the reality is that they could run multiple heats and declare the fastest finisher among the heats the winner. It's no different than track & field or swimming in that sense.

[Derek T.]

Hmmm?

I'm not convinced by some of your categorisations, Glenn, particularly in relation to those events that would fall under the generic term of a "race". I am certain that men, women and horses would not achieve the times that they do if they were running, swimming or cycling alone. The presence of others in the race adds a level of one to one or one to many competition that must surely classify these events as sports?

Take 100m sprinting as an example: many competitors race in heats through two or more rounds. In each round you compete with the 7 others in your heat, not the clock. It is not necissarily the 8 fastest who reach the final, it is the top 2 from 4 heats or the top 4 from 2 heats. Some of the 8 fastest may well be eliminated before the final based on who they are drawn against in their heats. Even though it is 30 years plus since I ran in a race I do remember that I was trying to catch the guy in front of me, not beat the clock

[Glenn E.]

I am certain that men, women and horses would not achieve the times that they do if they were running, swimming or cycling alone. The presence of others in the race adds a level of one to one or one to many competition that must surely classify these events as sports?

I suspect that usually only applies at lower levels of competition. When we were racing in school, we weren't highly trained professional athletes who know how to give their absolute best regardless of the competition.

Usain Bolt might as well have been running alone when he set the 100-meter world record, after all. None of his competitors were visible to him past about the 50-meter mark. And yet he still managed to shatter the world record.

Take 100m sprinting as an example: many competitors race in heats through two or more rounds. In each round you compete with the 7 others in your heat, not the clock. It is not necissarily the 8 fastest who reach the final, it is the top 2 from 4 heats or the top 4 from 2 heats. Some of the 8 fastest may well be eliminated before the final based on who they are drawn against in their heats.

True enough. More often at the international level, though, it's the best 3 from each of 2 heats plus the next 2 fastest times regardless of heat. Or something similar. But you could classify races as sport if you wanted to.

There are definitely similarities between track & field races, horse races, and, NASCAR. Relying on the fact that some are timed and some are not just seems to me like a reasonably clear delineation between those that don't actually need to be run head-to-head and those that do.

[Roy Hersh]

Glenn,

I know you did not make up the definition for these categories, but I STRONGLY disagree with the definition of SPORT. In fact it can be simply "a competition between athletes" and then you can add whatever you want to that. But having athletes competing makes it a sport. While two acrobatic pilots competing is more of a "game" to me than a "sport" nonetheless it is a competition ... but the pilots are certainly not athletes. The same could be said about great head-to-head bowlers. These are not ATHLETES as what they are doing, like the ICE DANCERS ... is PERFORMING and although there might be a very slight bit of athleticism involved in all 3 of the aformentioned games, I don't consider any of them real athletes. Athletes are the competitors that should make up Olympic games Winter and Summer. Not performing dancers on ice skates.

[Derek T.]

Glenn,

I know you did not make up the definition for these categories, but I STRONGLY disagree with the definition of SPORT. In fact it can be simply "a competition between athletes" and then you can add whatever you want to that. But having athletes competing makes it a sport. While two acrobatic pilots competing is more of a "game" to me than a "sport" nonetheless it is a competition ... but the pilots are certainly not athletes. The same could be said about great head-to-head bowlers. These are not ATHLETES as what they are doing, like the ICE DANCERS ... is PERFORMING and although there might be a very slight bit of athleticism involved in all 3 of the aformentioned games, I don't consider any of them real athletes. Athletes are the competitors that should make up Olympic games Winter and Summer. Not performing dancers on ice skates.

Why does a sport have to be between athletes? Who decided that criteria?

[Derek T.]

Usain Bolt might as well have been running alone when he set the 100-meter world record, after all. None of his competitors were visible to him past about the 50-meter mark. And yet he still managed to shatter the world record.

But surely he only managed to drive himself to do that as a result of the competition from others trying to do the same? i.e.the people he was competing against, whether or not they happened to be in the same race ( and I'm not even going to start on the meter/metre thing!!)

[Derek T.]

Athletes are the competitors that should make up Olympic games Winter and Summer. Not performing dancers on ice skates.

I'm just guessing here, Roy, but is there any chance you are a big fan of Synchronised Swimming?

[Glenn E.]

Glenn,

I know you did not make up the definition for these categories, but I STRONGLY disagree with the definition of SPORT. In fact it can be simply "a competition between athletes" and then you can add whatever you want to that. But having athletes competing makes it a sport. While two acrobatic pilots competing is more of a "game" to me than a "sport" nonetheless it is a competition ... but the pilots are certainly not athletes. The same could be said about great head-to-head bowlers. These are not ATHLETES as what they are doing, like the ICE DANCERS ... is PERFORMING and although there might be a very slight bit of athleticism involved in all 3 of the aformentioned games, I don't consider any of them real athletes. Athletes are the competitors that should make up Olympic games Winter and Summer. Not performing dancers on ice skates.

Why does a sport have to be between athletes? Who decided that criteria?

I'd argue that having athletes competing merely makes something athletics. I'd also argue that sport goes beyond mere athletics. More importantly, what defines an athlete? Roy, aren't you just shifting the needed definition from "what is sport?" to "what is an athlete?"

(Just for reference, the definitions I posted originated on a figure skating mailing list that my wife reads. As you can probably imagine, fans of figure skating get rather tired of people constantly questioning whether or not it is really a sport and whether or not its participants are really athletes.)

You would probably be surprised to find out just how much conditioning work Ice Dancers have to do in order to be able to perform their routines as gracefully as they do while simultaneously making them look effortless. I can barely stand on ice skates, let along twirl my 90-lb partner over my head with 1 hand while skating backwards. (Yeah, okay, that's Pairs not Ice Dance. Ice Dancers are prohibited by rule from lifting their partners above their shoulders. Whatever.) And while the 3-8 hours per day (depending on the season) that they train may not be as high as what some other athletes do for their sports, it is far more rigorous than anything that any of us could really even contemplate doing. Except for maybe Andy. Andy can at least relate to the level of dedication required, but I'd be willing to bet that even he doesn't train as hard as your average Olympic-caliber Ice Dancer.

Acrobatic pilots - the good ones at least - also have to train very hard to be able to survive the high g-forces generated by their maneuvers. Without that training they wouldn't be able to do what they do. It's a different kind of training, but they have to be physically fit in order to be really good at it.

Bowlers on the other hand... don't they just drink beer to train?

[Glenn E.]

Usain Bolt might as well have been running alone when he set the 100-meter world record, after all. None of his competitors were visible to him past about the 50-meter mark. And yet he still managed to shatter the world record.

But surely he only managed to drive himself to do that as a result of the competition from others trying to do the same? i.e.the people he was competing against, whether or not they happened to be in the same race ( and I'm not even going to start on the meter/metre thing!!)

Sure, but nothing in those definitions says that there isn't competition in feats or exhibitions. It just isn't head-to-head, or at the very least it isn't necessary that it be head-to-head to achieve the same result. They could have given each of the 8 finalists in the 100 meters an individually timed run - giving each of them their 10 seconds of glory - and at the end of the day you'd have never known the difference.

You can't play basketball or soccer without head-to-head competition. It is integral to the event. The way these definitions are set up, that integral head-to-headedness is one of the things that differentiates between sport/game/feat/exhibition.

I kind of like the way those definitions flow. They're clear and (reasonably) precise. But they're obviously not in line with common usage, so they're really just a fun conversation piece.

[Derek T.]

I kind of like the way those definitions flow. They're clear and (reasonably) precise. But they're obviously not in line with common usage, so they're really just a fun conversation piece.

In other words, they entice idiots like me to ramble on about a subject I know nothing about. Brilliant. You got me