EnPassant
Remember Remember some date in November Member
- Location
- Gloucester
Ok this is my umpteenth Olympics and as with each one previously I approach it with a sense of excitement.....only to have it drained from me by long tedious days of splishing and splashing about in a swimming pool.
Hazel Whatserface was saying that Phelps I think it was, now has more gold medals than some small continents. Hardly surprising since each swimming event is competed and then re-competed over what seems about 40 different distances.
Also hardly fair, for instance they don't have a 10km cycling time trial and a 20km one and a 30km one and so on.
So, I have been thinking, as one does, how could we trim this nonsense down to a more manageable size?
I'll kick off with the swimming, but this could and probably should be applied in other areas.
They don't need more than one stroke for starters. The idea is to find the fastest on earth, they don't run the 100 metres backwards to find out who's the fastest that way, so what's the deal with swimming a given distance with 4 different strokes of which 3 are clearly sub-optimal?
Dump the backstroke breaststroke and that butterfly (that was clearly made up by a loony in the first place) and that's 3/4 of it already trimmed out for the nonsense it clearly is.
Next up the distances: freestyle, the only stroke we are now allowing has 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m (women) and 1500m (men). At the most there should be a sprint a middle distance and a marathon version. There's already a separate marathon swimming thingy so lets have 100m (50 is too easy to confuse with the diving) and a 400m.
Relays of all the above can go too, Individual and team medley being first to get chopped as 3 out of 4 parts of it are already banned.
So 100m and 400m swimming men, and the same for women. Relays of same if you must. That's 4 individual events and 4 team. Quite enough swimming for anyone. Job's a good 'un.
Anyway think how far all the other events could be cut along the same lines, all those weight categories, there's no 100m for people under 5 foot 4, or over 30 stone, so why is there weightlifting for people under this or that arbitrarily set kg? Same Judo, same boxing, we want to see the best not the best if you take the big people away.... lightweight sculling what's that all about then?
Throwing things on the field is another, just select the one that goes the furthest etc.
NO accusations that this was meant seriously will be brooked.
Hazel Whatserface was saying that Phelps I think it was, now has more gold medals than some small continents. Hardly surprising since each swimming event is competed and then re-competed over what seems about 40 different distances.
Also hardly fair, for instance they don't have a 10km cycling time trial and a 20km one and a 30km one and so on.
So, I have been thinking, as one does, how could we trim this nonsense down to a more manageable size?
I'll kick off with the swimming, but this could and probably should be applied in other areas.
They don't need more than one stroke for starters. The idea is to find the fastest on earth, they don't run the 100 metres backwards to find out who's the fastest that way, so what's the deal with swimming a given distance with 4 different strokes of which 3 are clearly sub-optimal?
Dump the backstroke breaststroke and that butterfly (that was clearly made up by a loony in the first place) and that's 3/4 of it already trimmed out for the nonsense it clearly is.
Next up the distances: freestyle, the only stroke we are now allowing has 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m (women) and 1500m (men). At the most there should be a sprint a middle distance and a marathon version. There's already a separate marathon swimming thingy so lets have 100m (50 is too easy to confuse with the diving) and a 400m.
Relays of all the above can go too, Individual and team medley being first to get chopped as 3 out of 4 parts of it are already banned.
So 100m and 400m swimming men, and the same for women. Relays of same if you must. That's 4 individual events and 4 team. Quite enough swimming for anyone. Job's a good 'un.
Anyway think how far all the other events could be cut along the same lines, all those weight categories, there's no 100m for people under 5 foot 4, or over 30 stone, so why is there weightlifting for people under this or that arbitrarily set kg? Same Judo, same boxing, we want to see the best not the best if you take the big people away.... lightweight sculling what's that all about then?
Throwing things on the field is another, just select the one that goes the furthest etc.
NO accusations that this was meant seriously will be brooked.
