Posted on 08/24/2004 4:45:53 PM PDT by SlickWillard
She looked far better in the pics in the link you posted than she did at Athens. She was just emaciated. I hope she's not suffering from an eating disorder; she was frighteningly thin.
All fame is fleeting. She was quite a story then.
Thanks also, for the update.
She'd been quite a story for years, here in Australia - I think she caused a stir at the Commonwealth Games sometime in the mid-nineties by flying not only an Australian flag, but an Aboriginal flag, with her on her victory lap after becoming Commonwealth champion.
By the time she lit the torch at the Sydney 2000 Games, my mother and father (just for instance) were sick to death of hearing about her. But there you have it.
Not really. There are objective scoring criteria that the judges are supposed to follow. But not every judge is going to see things the same way, just as each baseball umpire has a different strike zone, each hockey or football referree has a different standard on what is or isn't a penalty, etc.
At least in the subjective scoring events, the scores are averaged from multiple judges, frequently with the high and low scores dropped, to minimize the effect of difference of opinion. In most other sports, if one official makes a mistake, it can compeltely change the outcome of the game.
hey.. where did you get my picture?
Honey.. where I'm from, "Larry the Cable Guy" means "John Doe".
Right...best we roll out the burquas, eh?
Party pooper.
Nice post though!
Lol.. pabst blue ribbon? Hadn't thought about that in years. There was even an old country song that went ..."rednecks, whiiite socks, and blue ribbon beeer."
I will have to check the show out. I love foxworthy.. it seems like he's met half my family and most people I know.
We joke that they will eventually 'have' to go to pasties and thongs, you know, for freedom of movement. Yeah, that's it.
It's true, how much 'smaller' can those uniforms get? And not just volleyball. I thought a couple of the men's swim team members were going to lose their bottoms. Yikes.
I didn't get to see the volleyball matches, I wish I had. All 4 teams were quite talented, I didn't realize the Australian team had a player so injured! Wow, they were amazing to watch.
I was thinking the same thing. All 4 teams were so talented and the second best did get the bronze here (at least). It does seem like you've struck upon a fairer way to decide.
As I said before, this is merely my opinion. In what I personally view to be the true sports there are concrete goals to strive for: crossing the goal in football, crossing the plate in baseball, sinking a basket in basketball, scoring a goal in hockey, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, water polo, etc. In activities I personally view to not be true sports, the goal to be attained is less clear: What constitutes a perfect vault, routine, or performance? It is all subject to the opinion of the official. The strike zone is defined in the rule book. Umpires are criticized for not following the rule book and changing the strike zone. The official's opinion in true sports are less a part of the game. In fact, in baseball the umpire will be seen to have done a great job if none of his actions are memorable. Your points are well-stated however, and I feel this is a matter of taste. I can never prove that I am right, nor can you. That is the nature of this argument. One thing we can agree on is that sports are certainly fun to watch, regardless of how you or I define them. Also, the athletes in the activities that I do not define as true sports are some of the finest and most skilled in the world. Their ability is not in question.
Actually, it does have the major problem that once the Gold Medal has been decided, people don't want any more games in the sport. So the Olympic approach is better in that regard. Still, if there are sixteen randomly-seeded contestants, there's less than a 50% probability that the best three contestants will place even if every game is won by the better contestant. The possible rankings of the medal winners (X is anything below fourth) and the probabilities are:
123 30.5% 12X 22.9% 132 15.2% 13X 11.4% 1X2 11.4% 1X3 5.7% 1XX 2.9%So the probability of all three medals being awarded to the best three contestants, in the proper order, is 30.5%. The probability of them being awarded to the best three contestants in any order is 45.7%. The probability of gold and silver being correct is 53.3%. FYI, in case you're interested, here's a table which distinguishes the fourth-best contestant from the rest:
123 30.5% 124 14.1% 12X 8.8% 132 15.2% 134 7.0% 13X 4.4% 142 7.0% 143 3.5% 14X 1.8% 1X2 4.4% 1X3 2.2% 1X4 0.9% 1XX 0.2%I'll see if I can figure out any reasonable improvement which keeps the Gold Medal Game last.
Note that ranking four items requires a minimum of five comparisons; requiring that the Gold Medal Game be last, though, complicates things. Further, there's a certain awkwardness if the second-best contestand plays the best contestant early-on: that contestant will get paired with the best contestant again in the final.
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