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Its utterly mind-blowing that humans of different races, with vastly different life histories and training regimens, competing in a sport with tremendous physic
by maxander 10y ago
Its utterly mind-blowing that humans of different races, with vastly different life histories and training regimens, competing in a sport with tremendous physical complexity, can wind up with performance equal to each other, to the limits of our ability to measure it.
There's still some important lesson in the Olympics, despite everything.
- Someone 10y agoBut we could fairly easily measure it; we just don't find it worth the trouble. Also, as to the ties, that's almost purely a political choice made by the sporting body. In rowing, for example, the winner in the Olympic final was decided by looking at the finish photo (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/13/theres-only-one-gold-after-5000ths-of-a-second-divides-dead-heat/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/13/theres-only-one-g...), with both rowers getting the same time in hundreds of a second. I doubt they can align six boats to that precision at the start, even with equipment for holding the bows of the boats at the starting line.