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Olympic has always been about country and its medal counts. If it’s about best player to win, then they need to change the qualification rules for the sports.

by aynyc 4y ago

labster 4y ago
What the Olympics is about has always been subject to debate. The tension between its modernist ideals and realpolitik was present at the start, with individualist and postmodern criticisms joining the chat later. It’s hard to imagine some starting a similar institution today, but it seems at least somewhat effective at its goal of world peace, if only by giving nations an easy, institutionalized way to gain prestige without going to war.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  > gain prestige without going to war. Has war ever been about prestige ?
  - haimez 4y ago
    No, it hasn’t- the Olympics have never been a substitute for war. They have however been a great way for peaceful nations to promote themselves economically for tourism during and after the event- although not for a while with the IOCC and Olympic hosting becoming a massive opportunity for corrupt boondoggles. Even so, host country aside, the international event has created the opportunity to raise awareness and create good will towards nations that otherwise wouldn’t have any similar opportunity- the Jamaican bobsled team comes to mind.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - labster 4y ago
    The Crusades seem an obvious example. Why endeavor to conquer coastal desert a thousand kilometers from your kingdom instead of your neighbor’s farmland and mines. The Trojan war was about a single woman and her prestige. And WWII had fascist ideologies that were centered on proving to the world how great they were, and the proved more important than the economic motives in actually starting the war.
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades > The first Crusaders had a variety of motivations, including religious salvation, satisfying feudal obligations, opportunities for renown, and economic or political advantage. "prestige" could be close to "renown", but it comes from a different place (renown brings direct advantages, including nobility attribution for instance), and you'll note economic and political advantage are set as anchors of this list. The reality of it is about conquering territory under a pretense that won't raise hostility among your neighbors (who can even participate in the expeditions under the same religious flag) > Trojan war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War > Many scholars believe that there is a historical core to the tale, though this may simply mean that the Homeric stories are a fusion of various tales of sieges and expeditions by Mycenaean Greeks during the Bronze Age. > WWII > proved more important than the economic motives Could I ask for more details on your understanding of it as "proved" ?
ericls 4y ago
Yep, I don't watch it anymore because it's not a game between human beings anymore. I think players should be not allowed to disclose their nationalities in the Olympics
- eru 4y ago
  We already have these kinds of competitions. Eg the 'FIFA Club World Cup' is open to teams and their players (almost) regardless of nationality. By and large, people still prefer watching the FIFA World Cup which is organised along national lines. Similar for many other sports. Eg many major tennis events are typically not run along national lines; but viewers still care about nationality of the participants.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    I think the point is that it might be unhealthy to promote the idea of nations and inter-national competition as a virtue, even if viewers prefer it because it stokes their tribal sentiments. Local sports is more harmless because local identity isn't often a part of tribal conflict in the modern day.
    - oarabbus_ 4y ago
      >Local sports is more harmless because local identity isn't often a part of tribal conflict in the modern day. How do you justify this statement, or the premise? In the modern day, homicide kills many times more people than conflict between nations. In the USA at least, local identity is the primary driver of gang violence.
      - hackerlight 4y ago
        Homicide isn't a catastrophic tail risk. War between great powers is. The type of war that comes from revanchism and nationalism and so on. It hasn't happened in the modern era yet because of nukes, but the risk is there, and we had numerous close calls with the Soviet Union.
eru 4y ago
It's a complicated beast, and has many priorities to juggle in order to ensure its own perpetuation. A big one is that the Olympics need to keep appealing to viewers around the world. They need to stay relevant with the audience, so that they can keep getting both corporate and government money, and also wield political influence. Stoking nationalist fervours around the world is definitely part of that appeal. But not the only one.
k_sze 4y ago
I suspect that the way we watch the Olympics pretty much implies it is a country-team event. I'm pretty sure most people have their eyes on the medal count rankings, not on who exactly wins a medal (unless you are a close friend or relative of a particular athlete). So I always thought all competent national team coaches would do this kind of strategization.
- osigurdson 4y ago
  >> competent national team coaches would do this kind of strategization The Olympics is supposed to be a celebration of excellence in sport, not how to best game the system. It would be one thing to simply forfeit the match but to have to pretend to play well with the ultimately goal of losing is simply disgusting and such behaviour should absolutely be banned.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - k_sze 4y ago
    Celebration of excellence, yes. Just not personal excellence. The ancient Olympic games were already used as a political tool to assert dominance among Greek city-states. One of the points of the games since ancient Greece has been for the winning city-state to say “look, I can train my soldiers to be this good. You don’t want to mess with me.”
    - osigurdson 4y ago
      So why not simply forfeit then? It would have achieved the same goal without the shameful fakery.
      - k_sze 4y ago
        I think one possible explanation is that this is a weird side effect of the modern games being heavily commercialized. If athletes just quit without a fight, spectators won’t like it and tickets won’t sell.
akudha 4y ago
Maybe it shouldn’t be about the country and its medal counts then. Imagine spending the best years of your life training, only to be told to throw the match because some bureaucrats thought it was best for their country? This whole patriotism thing in sports seems silly. Two highly trained and motivated people are playing, let the better person win the match. Why does it have to be so hard? Maybe it is time to stop playing national anthem and play the winner’s favorite song instead. Wave a white flag instead of the national flag.
- ummonk 4y ago
  "let the better person win the match." - that's exactly what the Chinese told her to do.

Olympic has always been about country and its medal counts. If it’s about best player to win, then they need to change the qualification rules for the sports.

by aynyc 4y ago

Olympic has always been about country and its medal counts. If it’s about best player to win, then they need to change the qualification rules for the sports.

labster 4y ago

What the Olympics is about has always been subject to debate. The tension between its modernist ideals and realpolitik was present at the start, with individualist and postmodern criticisms joining the chat later. It’s hard to imagine some starting a similar institution today, but it seems at least somewhat effective at its goal of world peace, if only by giving nations an easy, institutionalized way to gain prestige without going to war.

makeitdouble 4y ago
> gain prestige without going to war. Has war ever been about prestige ?
- haimez 4y ago
  No, it hasn’t- the Olympics have never been a substitute for war. They have however been a great way for peaceful nations to promote themselves economically for tourism during and after the event- although not for a while with the IOCC and Olympic hosting becoming a massive opportunity for corrupt boondoggles. Even so, host country aside, the international event has created the opportunity to raise awareness and create good will towards nations that otherwise wouldn’t have any similar opportunity- the Jamaican bobsled team comes to mind.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- labster 4y ago
  The Crusades seem an obvious example. Why endeavor to conquer coastal desert a thousand kilometers from your kingdom instead of your neighbor’s farmland and mines. The Trojan war was about a single woman and her prestige. And WWII had fascist ideologies that were centered on proving to the world how great they were, and the proved more important than the economic motives in actually starting the war.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades > The first Crusaders had a variety of motivations, including religious salvation, satisfying feudal obligations, opportunities for renown, and economic or political advantage. "prestige" could be close to "renown", but it comes from a different place (renown brings direct advantages, including nobility attribution for instance), and you'll note economic and political advantage are set as anchors of this list. The reality of it is about conquering territory under a pretense that won't raise hostility among your neighbors (who can even participate in the expeditions under the same religious flag) > Trojan war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War > Many scholars believe that there is a historical core to the tale, though this may simply mean that the Homeric stories are a fusion of various tales of sieges and expeditions by Mycenaean Greeks during the Bronze Age. > WWII > proved more important than the economic motives Could I ask for more details on your understanding of it as "proved" ?

ericls 4y ago

Yep, I don't watch it anymore because it's not a game between human beings anymore. I think players should be not allowed to disclose their nationalities in the Olympics

eru 4y ago
We already have these kinds of competitions. Eg the 'FIFA Club World Cup' is open to teams and their players (almost) regardless of nationality. By and large, people still prefer watching the FIFA World Cup which is organised along national lines. Similar for many other sports. Eg many major tennis events are typically not run along national lines; but viewers still care about nationality of the participants.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  I think the point is that it might be unhealthy to promote the idea of nations and inter-national competition as a virtue, even if viewers prefer it because it stokes their tribal sentiments. Local sports is more harmless because local identity isn't often a part of tribal conflict in the modern day.
  - oarabbus_ 4y ago
    >Local sports is more harmless because local identity isn't often a part of tribal conflict in the modern day. How do you justify this statement, or the premise? In the modern day, homicide kills many times more people than conflict between nations. In the USA at least, local identity is the primary driver of gang violence.
    - hackerlight 4y ago
      Homicide isn't a catastrophic tail risk. War between great powers is. The type of war that comes from revanchism and nationalism and so on. It hasn't happened in the modern era yet because of nukes, but the risk is there, and we had numerous close calls with the Soviet Union.

eru 4y ago

It's a complicated beast, and has many priorities to juggle in order to ensure its own perpetuation. A big one is that the Olympics need to keep appealing to viewers around the world. They need to stay relevant with the audience, so that they can keep getting both corporate and government money, and also wield political influence. Stoking nationalist fervours around the world is definitely part of that appeal. But not the only one.

k_sze 4y ago

I suspect that the way we watch the Olympics pretty much implies it is a country-team event. I'm pretty sure most people have their eyes on the medal count rankings, not on who exactly wins a medal (unless you are a close friend or relative of a particular athlete). So I always thought all competent national team coaches would do this kind of strategization.

osigurdson 4y ago
>> competent national team coaches would do this kind of strategization The Olympics is supposed to be a celebration of excellence in sport, not how to best game the system. It would be one thing to simply forfeit the match but to have to pretend to play well with the ultimately goal of losing is simply disgusting and such behaviour should absolutely be banned.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- k_sze 4y ago
  Celebration of excellence, yes. Just not personal excellence. The ancient Olympic games were already used as a political tool to assert dominance among Greek city-states. One of the points of the games since ancient Greece has been for the winning city-state to say “look, I can train my soldiers to be this good. You don’t want to mess with me.”
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    So why not simply forfeit then? It would have achieved the same goal without the shameful fakery.
    - k_sze 4y ago
      I think one possible explanation is that this is a weird side effect of the modern games being heavily commercialized. If athletes just quit without a fight, spectators won’t like it and tickets won’t sell.

akudha 4y ago

Maybe it shouldn’t be about the country and its medal counts then. Imagine spending the best years of your life training, only to be told to throw the match because some bureaucrats thought it was best for their country? This whole patriotism thing in sports seems silly. Two highly trained and motivated people are playing, let the better person win the match. Why does it have to be so hard? Maybe it is time to stop playing national anthem and play the winner’s favorite song instead. Wave a white flag instead of the national flag.

ummonk 4y ago
"let the better person win the match." - that's exactly what the Chinese told her to do.