Diving and most types of gymnastics have no “artistic merit” score.
I always had the impression that the Japanese major leagues were good, but still not quite up to the standards of the US Major Leagues. Kind of like comparing the MLS to say… the English Premier League, the Bundesliga or Italy’s Serie A.
So would a US team of AAA players and/or college players stand a chance?
If you get a silver medal in rock climbing, and I get a gold medal in racewalking, you have my permission to mock me every day for the rest of my life while smacking me upside the head with my own medal. No, wait; that’s silly; just take my medal, you deserve a bit of gold more than I do; smack my head with that silver medal.
Really put some dents in it, if you’re so inclined.
I’m waiting for them to addheadisand bagpipe eating.
What is a host country supposed to do with a bunch of pole-dancing venues after the Games are over?
Japanese baseball is significantly inferior to MLB. But better than a “typical” AAA team. But baseball is a funny sport. Part of the reason baseball seasons are so long is you really do need a lot of games to see which team is better, unlike say football, a good college baseball team could, in fact, get a win against an MLB team. Whereas the best NCAA team in the country would get ran off the field by the worst NFL team. [They used to actually have the defending Super Bowl champs play a team of College All-Stars in Chicago, for 42 years up until 1976, the college team won 9 times out of 42, but in the final 12 contests had lost every time and it was becoming obvious that over time the NFL was building serious separation from college.]
In a matter of actual fact, MLB all stars played the Japan all stars in 2014 and lost in a 5 games series 3-2. They had played in 10 series prior over the years, and the MLB all stars are 9-2 overall.
There is actually a tradition of MLB teams inviting college teams to their Spring Training facilities and playing exhibition games. In fact, as this (paywall WSJ article, sorry) says, between 2006 and 2014 in 67 such college vs MLB exhibitions, MLB teams were 63-3-1, and outscored the college teams 642-133. But note, college teams did sneak in some wins–in fact the article itself notes one of those wins involved a Division II NCAA school beating an MLB team.
A comparative gap in football would be unthinkable (an FCS or Division II NCAA team losing to an NFL team.) So looking at how dominant MLB teams have been versus college teams, and then comparing it to MLB vs Japanese teams, it suggests there’s no reason to expect a good college team wouldn’t sneak in some wins against a Japanese team, but the Japanese team would likely win more often than not. It also the case that a typical AAA team is probably better than college teams, too–remember AAA rosters frequently have major leagues who might be there while rotating back onto an MLB roster and generally the best baseball talent in America go into the minor league system, not college.
A Triple-A team is much better than a college team. Triple-A is the top rung of the American professional baseball ladder, but one; excellent college players are ready to enter into the bottom couple rungs. (Compare to the equivalent prospects for college football and basketball players.) Those spring records between MLB teams (just getting into shape, with nothing to prove) versus collegians (the reverse) further confirm how tall that ladder is.
That said, the outcome variances in baseball are indeed large, and an overall much-weaker team can certainly prove better on occasional days. Fluky outcomes are very possible in short tournaments.
I don’t know about that. As silly as it looks, I think racewalking would be damn hard. There’s a 50km evetn for men in the Olympics; that’s 5 miles more than a marathon, and the record is about 3h32m. I damn sure couldn’t do that.
On the other hand, Telemark posted a link to a speed climbing video which took less than 6 seconds. I wonder if that would be the shortest event at the Olympics. Even the 100 meters is 9 seconds +.
I was really trying to get a feel for where the Japanese majors stack up vs. AAA ball, and speculating that in much the same way that the MLS is about on par with European second-tier leagues, maybe the Japanese majors are roughly comparable to AAA.
Maybe this is roughly true for the leagues as wholes. The best NPB players are certainly MLB caliber, while the worst would not make Triple-A here. The Japanese national team, of course, doesn’t have any of the latter class.
Admittedly, the stamina required for some of the racewalking is commendable.
But what disqualifies you is running or jogging – or even walking vigorously – for a few steps. You medal by spending rather a lot of time making absolutely sure not to move as fast as you can. There may well be Olympians who can get from Point A to Point B in less time than you can, but we’ll never know, because what gets you the gold is doing it in a silly and awkward fashion. And I say: meh.
Then again, a lot of people feel the same way about all of the non-freestyle swimming events.
Did you see the rockclimbing videos? They’re climbing, but not on rocks; it looks like some sort of scaffold covered in plywood with various handholds attached. If you just want to get to the top, go around the back and climb the scaffolding. All sports events are contrived and artificial in some way.
And no discussion of racewalking is complete without this video.
Or non-downhill skiing.
Eh, it doesn’t make a sport any less interesting to say that the contestants have to stay on some particular course. I mean, it’s also a lot easier to reach the finish line on an oval track by not going all the way around, and that’s no different than climbing a wall via the scaffolding on the back. What makes the sport uninteresting is restricting the techniques allowed to the athletes on that course.
One of the links Telemark posted had a climber using an unconventional leg hold to hold onto the structure while reaching for the finish (while still staying within the defined bounds). I like a sport where that sort of thing is allowed.
These are the current ski and snowboarding events:
[ul]
[li]Alpine downhill[/li][li]Alpine super G[/li][li]Alpine Giant Slalom[/li][li]Alpine Slalom[/li][li]Alpine Super Combined[/li][li]Freestyle Aerials[/li][li]Freestyle Moguls[/li][li]Freestyle Ski Cross[/li][li]Freestyle Ski Halfpipe[/li][li]Freestyle Ski Slopestyle[/li][li]Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom[/li][li]Snowboard Halfpipe[/li][li]Snowboard Cross[/li][li]Snowboard Slopestyle[/li][li]Biathlon Individual[/li][li]Biathlon Sprint[/li][li]Biathlon Pursuit[/li][li]Biathlon Mass Start[/li][li]Biathlon Relay[/li][li]Biathlon Mixed Relay[/li][li]XC Individual Sprint[/li][li]XC Team Sprint[/li][li]XC Freestyle[/li][li]XC Pursuit[/li][li]XC Classical[/li][li]XC Relays[/li][li]Ski Jumping Normal Hill[/li][li]Ski Jumping Large Hill[/li][li]Ski Jumping Team Large Hill[/li][li]Nordic Combined Large Hill[/li][li]Nordic Combined Normal Hill[/li][li]Nordic Combined Team[/li][/ul]
I don’t get this; why would the stroke matter to a spectator? What makes watching swimming races exciting is the same regardless of stroke.
For me, the 200 IM is probably the most exciting one to watch- it requires a well-rounded swimmer, and swimmers differ in their relative speed in different strokes.
Surfing? Googling, it looks like Japan has some surfing locations, but I have never associated surfing with Japan.
In the past the Summer Olympics has been to London & Atlanta, two places where there can’t be too much surfing.