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Pug
The Movie Geek
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Joined: 21 Aug 2003
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 Posted: 08/26/04 - 08:57 Post subject:
Track allows professional athletes to compete. Just a thought.
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andydp
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Joined: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 8122
Location: Upstate NY near Albany
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 09:01 Post subject:
| Cappy wrote: | | I actually would like some of the team sports revert back to using amateurs, ie Basketball, and Ice Hockey. I would be more likely to cheer for the US teams if a bunch of college players were playing, and not these prima donna professional players. |
Cappy,
I hate to tell you but... In the past, the US was just about the only country that DID use amateurs for all its Olympians. All you had to do was look at the USSR Ice hockey team - made up of USSR "Soldiers". Or any of the old Eastern Europe teams. These people were all blatantly "pros".
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Cappy
Excelent
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Joined: 16 May 2002
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Location: Spreadsheetylvania
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 09:03 Post subject:
| andydp wrote: | | Cappy wrote: | | I actually would like some of the team sports revert back to using amateurs, ie Basketball, and Ice Hockey. I would be more likely to cheer for the US teams if a bunch of college players were playing, and not these prima donna professional players. |
Cappy,
I hate to tell you but... In the past, the US was just about the only country that DID use amateurs for all its Olympians. All you had to do was look at the USSR Ice hockey team - made up of USSR "Soldiers". Or any of the old Eastern Europe teams. These people were all blatantly "pros". |
I realize/d that other Soviet Bloc teams used pro's. I would like the see the American teams be made up of college players. Most, if not all of the pro players we already know, and are familiar with
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copteacher
Adjunct
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Joined: 08 Jun 2002
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Location: Teaching in the Halls of Justice
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 09:16 Post subject:
how about at least some college players, like half and half
The Japanese baseball team had all of their top players and got beat by the Aussies...all amateurs. It makes it all that much better.
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Gogirlgo
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Joined: 25 Jul 2002
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Location: No deal, stalker.
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 09:16 Post subject:
I really think it started to tank when ABC's Wide World of Sports ended. If you watched that, you had a real sense of who was whom in the worlds of skiing, gymnastics, ice skating or whatever. So there was no need for the humongous buildup on every single participant. The overschmalzing is the worst part. I'm sorry---you can't ALL have had your mother die or come back from some horrific illness two weeks ago or whatever. Stop playing that card.
To the other point, I know the Eastern Bloc countries had "pros" back when they had money. Our not using professionals made it such a richer win when we won against them, I always felt.
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robp
Pyromaniac
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Location: Waiting in line at the beer store...
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 09:20 Post subject:
| Gogirlgo wrote: | I really think it started to tank when ABC's Wide World of Sports ended. If you watched that, you had a real sense of who was whom in the worlds of skiing, gymnastics, ice skating or whatever. So there was no need for the humongous buildup on every single participant. The overschmalzing is the worst part. I'm sorry---you can't ALL have had your mother die or come back from some horrific illness two weeks ago or whatever. Stop playing that card.
To the other point, I know the Eastern Bloc countries had "pros" back when they had money. Our not using professionals made it such a richer win when we won against them, I always felt. |
Dang.... I agree with G3's entire post!  Especially the "overschmalzing"....
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Gogirlgo
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 09:26 Post subject:
| robp wrote: |
Dang.... I agree with G3's entire post! |
Excuse me--I think I have to go play the lottery right now.
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RexRacer
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 09:29 Post subject:
I think one reason that made our victories over such stacked teams so very sweet, eg the 1980 Hockey team, was that we were amateurs playing against what we knew to be their best players.
The doping thing is really getting out of hand in all sport, I think. I mean some people are having these very designer cocktails put together for them that are just past the fringes of legality, or more likely, detectability.
That and then some 14 y.o. Romanian kid has to give back her medal because she took an OTC cold medicine.
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RexRacer
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 09:34 Post subject:
I've liked watching events this Olympics on the Spanish channel (Telemundo?). You get games and teams we don't see on NBC, which tends to focus on US-centric events. Like we never saw much fencing until we had a girl who had the chance to medal for the first time in US history. And since I don't speak Spanish I don't have to listen to those 'Up close and personal things'
And what's with field hockey? I saw today that the final two games were being played and the gold game was between Holland and Germany. Who? I didn't even think they played field hockey outside of the US and we weren't in any medal contest. Weird.
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Cappy
Excelent
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Joined: 16 May 2002
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Location: Spreadsheetylvania
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 11:20 Post subject:
| RexRacer wrote: | | And what's with field hockey? I saw today that the final two games were being played and the gold game was between Holland and Germany. Who? I didn't even think they played field hockey outside of the US and we weren't in any medal contest. Weird. |
It used to be (not sure if it still is) a very popular sport in India, and that vicinity
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sonnylax
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Location: Living in a lollipop and unicorn world
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 11:26 Post subject:
How to end the controversies: Drop subjective sports from the Games
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/josh_elliott/08/25/blog/index.html?cnn=yes
| Quote: | No athletic event that is judged belongs in the Olympics.
And no exceptions: No gymnastics. No ice skating or boxing. No synchronized swimming or diving. If it can't be won on the track, in the lane lines or with one more goal than the other folks, it has no place in the world's premier festival of sport, one that purports to give us the world's greatest champions. For if a win can't be unquestionably achieved, what's it worth, really? Without an objective, inarguable method for determining victory and defeat, the very meaning of the competition is lost. (After all, this isn't my niece's toddler soccer league, where one team scores 49 goals and the other scores two, then the exhausted competitors are told, Saturday after disillusioning Saturday, that it was a tie.) Without an absolutely certain outcome, an event such as, say, the men's gymnastics all-around, isn't a sport at all. It's a talent show.
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gretriever
Hipster Doofus
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Joined: 16 Jul 2003
Posts: 19385
Location: A moving target in a firing range.
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 11:27 Post subject:
| RexRacer wrote: | | And what's with field hockey? I saw today that the final two games were being played and the gold game was between Holland and Germany. Who? I didn't even think they played field hockey outside of the US and we weren't in any medal contest. Weird. |
A sport can be included, or suggested to be included if it is "popular on five of the six continents." (I remember that specific definition in quotes but do not remember the source.) Of course, that leads into what, and who, defines "popular". Maybe now substitute "lobby" in there somewhere.
Field Hockey until about the 1980 Games was almost always won by India or Pakistan.
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MechEngDropout
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 11:32 Post subject:
| sonnylax wrote: | How to end the controversies: Drop subjective sports from the Games
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 I would have no problem with this.
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Cappy
Excelent
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Joined: 16 May 2002
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Location: Spreadsheetylvania
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 12:48 Post subject:
I think we also could do without the Equestrian related events. The horse really does all the work.
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purple hayes
Frightened Inmate #2
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Joined: 14 May 2002
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Location: ON YOUR LEFT!
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Posted: 08/26/04 - 13:39 Post subject:
| Cappy wrote: | | The horse really does all the work. |
That's about like saying the riding a bicycle is just pumping your legs.
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