# Judged sports in the Olympics **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [August 17, 2016, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066 "2016-08-17T12:22:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/1 "2016-08-17T12:22:32Z")
Shouldn’t they ditch judged sporting in the Olympics? Seems like they’re just another way of interjecting yet more nationalism into a venue that already suffers far too much from this affliction. You’d see the judged events joke play out repeatedly during the Cold War when one of our gymnasts completed their routine and the judges’ scores would go up…Canada 9.6, Egypt, 9.7, Italy 9.7, USSR…9.0!:dubious: Events based extensively on subjective criteria, like figure skating and gymnastics, seem especially suspect. Sometimes scoring can be real obvious, like when someone blatantly falls down, but I’ll watch six different gymnasts do their routines with (what appears to me at any rate) perfection and it all apparently comes down to a coin flip, yet the judges seem to know there’s a distinct tenth of a point difference between the bronze and silver medal performances. Even if it’s perfectly clear to the judges who deserves what score because of their esoteric knowledge of the events, the impression John & Jane Public has is that scores can appear to have more to do with politics than performance. ---
**Author:** ![lost4life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@lost4life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lost4life)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/2 "2016-08-17T12:33:10Z")
You have to remember that the Olympics are sometimes more about marketing than actual sports. Judged events like gymnastics and ice dancing are very popular. Without any statistics to back it up, I would assume that these events appeal more to women, giving the Olympics a larger, more diverse viewing audience. I do fall in the camp that while these events are extremely physical and difficult, the winner is an opinion of random judges. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/3 "2016-08-17T12:34:55Z")
A [related story](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/16/gary-antuanne-russell-boxing-fixing-allegations-rio-olympics) popped up yesterday, relating to boxing judging. See also the Roy Jones Jr. fiasco of some years back. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/4 "2016-08-17T12:38:21Z")
In many of these sports they discard the highest and lowest scores to reach more of a consensus amongst the judges. This is IMHO an adequate compromise in most cases. I don’t think it is necessary to deny competitors and fans the chance to enjoy their sports at the highest level just because they cannot be 100% objectively scored. Obviously you are free to ignore any sports whose ethos you disagree with. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/5 "2016-08-17T12:43:45Z")
It’s not about objective competition…it’s about the money. The IOC and NBC makes out like bandits while the host country and many of the participating athletes usually get stuck on the wrong end financially. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/6 "2016-08-17T13:25:08Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > Shouldn’t they ditch judged sporting in the Olympics? Yes, let’s get rid of the most popular sports in the summer (gymnastics) and winter (figure skating) games because it offends some people’s feelings about what sport should be. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/7 "2016-08-17T13:27:03Z")
I have no doubt that for various probably baseless reasons the sport administrators would never agree to it, but I can see how you could make the judging much better: supposedly it’s all about the difficulty of the moves, and the perfection with which they are undertaken. OK, so each competitor wears a suit that has markers all over it, at each hand, elbow, knee, hip etc. that are picked up by some form of scanner under (say) ultraviolet light. I understand this sort of thing is done with actors being inserted into CGI these days all the time. Then, the judges are only shown computer created “wireframe” views of the competitors. They can’t tell who they are or what they look like or which country but can only see the manoeuvres they perform, and the perfection with which they do or don’t do them. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/8 "2016-08-17T13:28:35Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Yes, let’s get rid of the most popular sports in the summer (gymnastics) and winter (figure skating) games because it offends some people’s feelings about what sport should be. And let’s include interpretive dance or poetry readings or maybe express dressmaking. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/9 "2016-08-17T13:35:27Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > A [related story](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/16/gary-antuanne-russell-boxing-fixing-allegations-rio-olympics) popped up yesterday, relating to boxing judging. See also the Roy Jones Jr. fiasco of some years back. > > Regards, > Shodan Yeah, that one was bad. I watch very little sports or Olympics in particular and don’t give a rat’s behind about boxing specifically. But I was at someone’s house who did and I saw that one. Even I was WTF? Are you kidding me? ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/10 "2016-08-17T14:50:09Z")
Its (gymnastics) gotten better. If I understand things correctly, you submit the skill/program you are going to do and a max score is assigned to that blind. You then get deductions based on breaks in form that happen and those are pretty much standardized as well. Is it flawless? I doubt it. But its a lot closer to _Nation Blind_ than the old system was. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/11 "2016-08-17T14:50:52Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Yeah, that one was bad. I watch very little sports or Olympics in particular and don’t give a rat’s behind about boxing specifically. But I was at someone’s house who did and I saw that one. > > Even I was WTF? Are you kidding me? Heh. Four years ago, we had [a thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=660715) discussing another Olympic boxing match with a feature even a casual observer would’ve noticed: the fight is supposed to be over if a guy gets knocked down three times in one round, and so four would obviously be silly. Which means five is just ridiculous. I’ll admit that the _sixth_ time was just the “winner” falling down all by himself, and so wouldn’t count toward automatically declaring victory – but that’s still so egregious that the decision was reversed so that the _actual_ winner could go on to medal. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/12 "2016-08-17T15:01:22Z")
Thread relocated from IMHO to The Game Room. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/13 "2016-08-17T15:22:10Z")
Faster, higher, stronger…“nicer”? I’m not a fan of judged sports and the Olympics. Anything with a subjective artistic mark is automatically not a sport in my mind. Gymnastics, synchronised swimming, dressage…all should be taken out of the games. ---
**Author:** ![Victor\_Charlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7ea924/32.png) [@Victor\_Charlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Victor_Charlie)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/14 "2016-08-17T20:34:16Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > And let’s include interpretive dance or poetry readings or maybe express dressmaking. Do you mention poetry because it actually was an Olympic event way, way back? As was painting. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2016, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judged-sports-in-the-olympics/763066/15 "2016-08-17T21:06:47Z")
> [@Victor\_Charlie](#): > > Do you mention poetry because it actually was an Olympic event way, way back? As was painting. Also: architecture.