The occasion is the Games of the LXXXVIII Olympiad, a special event combining both the old summer and winter Olympic Games into one huge spectacle.
The location is Luna City, Mare Imbrium, Moon, 90210.
The sports facilities are built in huge domes, domes pressurized to match the standard sea-level Earth atmosphere.
What kinds of performances are the athletes, the solar system’s best and brightest young people, going to give us? I imagine that every event will be affected; every record set will have an asterisk or two beside it.
But how will individual events pan out?
My supposition is that events requiring primarily strength or endurance or “jumping” (shot put, marathon, high jump for example) will benefit greatly, while events demanding traction or gravity-aided results(sprints, down-hill skiing, pinning in wrestling) will suffer, compared to similar events on earth.
We can imagine that the athletes arrived in Luna City long enough before time to have trained there, and have tweaked their techniques as needed.
Anybody care to take a stab at this? Feel free to imagine events added to the Olympics in the preceding two centuries, as well as ones added to showcase what’s possible on the moon that wouldn’t be possible on Earth.
Hmmm. Shotput will suffer, because the athletes low weight will make it harder for him to throw the unchanged mass of the heavy ball far without knocking himself over.
Team sports will have to deal with athletes who can easily jump over each other.
I would have said that the unchanged mass of the athlete means he will be just as resistant to being knocked over. His unchanged strength (assuming he’s been training on the earth, not the moon) will impart much the same initial velocity to the shot, which will then travel much further.
But his mass won’t do as much good, because there will be far less friction to hold him in place. Unless some kind of velcro shoes are allowed, say, or a more advanced technological relative.
True - he may thus have to launch the shot at a somewhat higher angle. But it should still travel a lot further than on earth.
In events where friction is important, I think these lunar athletes will want to use spiked shoes (with spikes substantially longer than on earth). That should restore some of the lost traction.
I don’t see how that changes the fact that the shot will only weigh a sixth what it does on Earth. All the weights are changed the same. The only difference is that the athletes’ strength is not reduced by one sixth.
It’s essentially equivalent to having an athlete on Earth who’s several times stronger than any other shotputter; you wouldn’t say his strength advantage is negated by not having more friction, would you?
I was distinguishing between weight and mass. The shotput’s mass will not change; it will be as hard to move as ever, despite being lighter. The athelete’s decreased weight means he will be pressed less firmly onto the ground, and his feet will therefore require much less force to slip.