Just my 2sense
I don’t watch figure skating, but I will say that there has DEFINATLY been chanting at gymnastic events (the one that stands out most is the one where Kerry Strug had the sprained ankle, yet nailed the last event anyway). If jingoism is your main reason for casting doubt on team sports, take out gymnastics, which I consider to be, by far, the most jingoistic sport in the Olympics.
Oh… but you like that sport, so it stays, right?
Not a huge fan of gymnastics–or any sport where the scoring relies so heavily on subjective judging. But jingoism isn’t my main complaint with team sports; I just think the Olympic method of evaluating the best team in the world is flawed, especially when you consider the usual ways we crown champions in team sports competition.
Why don’t you guys start your own International sports competition. This one can be as “pure” as you want it to be. You can even have scientists come in and just scientifically measure muscle function if thats what you want. You can limit it to only sports you deem pure enough. And then you guys can go and find out once and for all who is the best human machine.
And the rest of us can sit back and watch our favorite sports- be it basketball or rhythm gymnastics, without hearing endless crackpot “reform” schemes from people who think that the Olympics are anything more than any other than an entertaining athletic competition with a little politics thrown in.
I’m assuming that it is analogous to Track and Field, where a certain number (usually three) competitors in each event constitute a “team.” It’s true that they don’t and can’t demonstrate any “teamwork,” but having three female figure skaters is like having three goalies.
While the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team benefited from playing at home, the true benefit of being the home team in hockey is getting the right to make the last line change so you can have the matchups you want. The U.S. team would have only gotten this privilege in half of its games I presume. The fans could have cheered “USA! USA! USA!” all they wanted, but if the other team had better players on the ice, it might not have made much of a difference.
The Soviet team was highly organized and extraordinarily well-disciplined and rarely screwed up.
Also if my memory is right, the Soviets didn’t pull their goalie toward the end of the game against the U.S. The Soviet coach didn’t like that strategy feeling that it was too high of a risk for very little reward.
A little snarkier than I would have been, but I agree 100%.
What… playoffs?
How is Olympic method of evaluating the best team in the world worse than… oh… the World Cup of soccer?
Why not split the team sports off into a separate competition, and leave the Olympics with sports in the spirit of the ancient games, a test of pure individual athleticism?
Because teams sports have been introduced in the Olympics and are going no where. Better to start your own competition than have a no chance campaign.
oing away with national teams would be somewhat silly. If nothing else, the ancient Greek city-states took away much honor wen their competitors did well. Same thing today, except we acknowledge it.
I have no problem with team sports, although they don’t interest me personally. However, I do object to Figure Skating in the strongest terms.
It’s not a sport. It’s physical, but there’s no objective measure of victory. It’s a physically demanding art, and should be treated and honored as art, not sport.
And whatever happened to the poetry competition? Huh? Hell, we could modernize it into a rap battle.
Emiemen’s bringing home the amphora in '08!
You don’t want to do that, at least not before Beijing, or you’ll get John Titor’s believers all worked up!
I’m cool with that. As long as we bring back the naked athletes. 
Not even close; can three goalies for the same team take gold, silver, and bronze?
32 teams will compete over a one month period, compared to the 12 invited to, say, Olympic Ice Hockey for the 2 weeks the sport is played. Qualifying for the 2006 World Cup has taken place over the latter half of the past year. In the North American region, for example, six teams played a total of 10 matches apiece to send four of the six into the tournament of 32 in Germany. Turning to the more competitive European region, I believe ~48 teams competed in eight groupings to send (I believe) 14 teams to the finals.
If the Olympics were more like this with respect to team play–expanded qualifying and longer “final” playoff rounds–I’d respect them more as a true measure of the “best team”. If instead they continue to do it the half-assed way they do now, why bother (yes, TV ratings is the glib answer, yet another reason why people continue to view sports as just another spectator entertainment).
This response is somewhat similar to ones I hear from professional wrestling fans when it’s pointed out the pro wrestling is not a sport. I know we live in a society that routinely churns out brainwashed consumers who think (in the immortal words of Homer Simpson) “it’s better to watch stuff than to do stuff”, but for those of us who don’t thing “the human drama of athletic competition” is just a Wide World of Sports cliche, I’d like sporting achievement to have a personal and real meaning beyond what thrills the couch potato channel flipper. If that’s too “crackpot” for you, so be it.
This response is somewhat similar to ones I hear from professional wrestling fans when it’s pointed out the pro wrestling is not a sport. I know we live in a society that routinely churns out brainwashed consumers who think (in the immortal words of Homer Simpson) “it’s better to watch stuff than to do stuff”, but for those of us who don’t think “the human drama of athletic competition” is just a Wide World of Sports cliche, I’d like sporting achievement to have a personal and real meaning beyond what thrills the couch potato channel flipper. If that’s too “crackpot” for you, so be it.
You… um… do realize that soccer teams DO go through qualifying for the Olympics, right? For example, the US did not qualify for the 2004 Games from the CONCACAF region (remember that Olympic soccer squads are basically U-23 squads, so no cause for concern for fellow US soccer fans :D).
And why do there need to be longer “finals” if you have the qualifying rounds? If you aren’t good enough to qualify, you don’t deserve to have a chance at the championship.
Agreed; FIFA runs the qualification process for Olympic soccer in a way that seems similar to World Cup play. The draw–if I’m not mistaken–took place less than three months before the games.
Compare this to the handling of basketball. The US team qualified for the 2004 Olympics by winning the Americas tournament in August 2003. By the time this latest “dream team” went to Athens, eight of the 15 players from that qualifying team (Ray Allen, Mike Bibby, Elton Brand, Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Kenyon Martin, Tracy McGrady, and Jermaine O’Neal) were gone. It’s no wonder the team that won the Americas so easily struggled to bronze in 2004.