bloomber@noscvax.UUCP (Michael N. Bloomberg) (08/07/84)
Does anybody in NetLand know why there are no racquet sports in
the Olympic games??? It seems to me that many of these sports
would be quite exciting to watch. Aside from tennis, badminton
and table tennis are two sports that come to mind. They are
fast-paced, take up a small area (great for T.V.!!) and require
excellent physical conditioning. I realize that a sport like
badminton is not well known. However, if played well, can be
quite an exciting sport and deserving of greater popularity.
It seems the Olympics gives a disproportional amount of attention
to the various sports. For example, why are there some many different
swimming events (the 100, 200, 400 meters in the backstroke, breaststroke,
butterfly and freestyle, the individual medley, and the team medley
(I probably didn't even cover them all!!) ) It seems absurd that
there is the potential of an individual winning seven gold medals
(as Mark Spitz did). Why not limit these events and include other
kinds of sports??
--
Real Life: Michael Bloomberg
MILNET: bloomber@nosc
UUCP: [ihnp4,akgua,decvax,dcdwest,ucbvax]!sdcsvax!noscvax!bloomberdlash@ihn5l.UUCP (Dave Lash) (08/14/84)
The july issue of national racquetball had an artical about the struggle to get racquecatball accepted as an olympic sport. The artical points out that there is a rather lengthy process involved in getting any sport accepted to be an olympic event. There are various committes and associations that must approve of a sport before it may become an olymic event. A sport passes through three statuses (observer, provisional, and full). R-ball has 41 nations in the internatl amateur r-ball fed. 72 countries must play the sport for the 1988 olymipics, 90 for 1992. The artical also stated that r-ball has a ways to go before being accepted. Tenis, table-tennis, and softball all are farther in the development process than r-ball. dave lash ihnp4!ihn5l!dlash
essick@uiucdcsb.UUCP (08/15/84)
#R:noscvax:-56400:uiucdcsb:14000001:000:1229 uiucdcsb!essick Aug 15 09:17:00 1984 There aren't really that many swimming events in the Olympics. The men's schedule includes: 100, 200, 400, and 1500 freestyle 100, 200 of back, breast, and butterfly 200 and 400 Individual Medley 400 Medley Relay 400 and 800 Freestyle Relay This is only 11 events for the men. Women have a slightly different schedule: they swim an 800 instead of the 1500 (and may have upgraded to the 1500) and do not have the longer free relay. Total events: 11 and 10 for men and women respectively. If we compare swimming to track we see that the you have at least the 100, 200(?), 400, 800, 1500, 5000, and 10000 meter races. The swimming 1500 is on the same order as running 5000 meters. You don't see many (if any) people competing at both ends of the spectrum. The individual medley's can be likened to the pentathalon and decathalon; events which test the athlete's all-around abilities. Mark Spitz won 7 medals because he outclassed the world in 2 different strokes: freestyle and butterfly. He won the 100 and 200 races in both strokes plus was on 3 relay teams. Imagine Carl Lewis winning both the 100 and 200 and going on to win a pair of hurdles races, then put him on some relays. -- Ray Essick, University of Illinois