quote:
Originally posted by Grojlach:
When I personally think of a sport, I'm thinking about figuring out who's best in a verifiable way. You can't verify whether a figure skating team is the best or not, that's completely subjective. There are no finish lines, goals or directly verifiable competition elements whatsoever...
[ 02-14-2002: Message edited by: Grojlach ]
A few comments on *verifiable* ...
A bit of history now ...
Figure skating competitions used to be verifiable, and this was the most important part of skating !!
An ice skating "figure" was a specified pattern ( known as a "tracing" ) left in the ice by the blade. The most classic figure was a circle in the ice. The next "figure" was a figure of eight. From there, figures gained dramatically in complexity. By utilizing supreme balance, poise, and by executing a precise series of turns, a skate could draw a figure on the ice of amazing complexity, looking like calligraphy patterns ...
These were hard enough perform by themselves, but a skater was required to repeat the same figure three times superimposed over each other with such accuracy that only one tracing was visible on the ice!!
A comparison. Rollerbladers, could you skate on one leg in a circle of 3 meters in diameter, and then repeat it twice so each circle was directly over the other?
Classical figure skating competitions were slow moving events. Judges would get out on the ice, and use a large wooden compass to measure the "roundness" of circles, and get down on their hands and knees with a ruler to measure differences in the tracings between the repetitions.
Figure skating competitions had two parts. The first, where they had to perform classic figures, and the second, where they could skate to music and perform programs. The figure part of the competition was orginally worth 70% (!!) of the total marks a skater would receive.
Over the years, more emphasis began to be paid to the skating programs. With the development of new jumps, and spins, and with glittery costumes, it was a lot more entertaining for non skaters to watch. Skating was now gaining popularity as a spectator sport. The marks awarded for each part of the competition began to change in favour of the "progams". From 70%, the "figures" value was then 50%, then only 30%, then finally that part of the competition was dropped altogether. Most ice skaters, not needing to do figures in competitions, stopped learning them. Now the only thing left of classic figures are drawings in old skating books, a rapidly dwindling number of people who can actually do them, and the word "figure" in figure skating.
Returning to your point about *verifiable*. Many current sports contain an artistic element of marking, including gymnastics, diving, ski jumping, even snow board half-pipe. If you apply your criteria to these as well, would you be happy that these would also no longer be *sports* ?
Skating competions are already half *verifiable*. That, of course, is the technical score.
I suppose you could just get skaters out on the ice and say "Peform a triple axel" (pass) "Perform a combination spin" (pass) "Perform a
quad toe loop" *skater falls on butt* (fail), and judge it that way, if you wanted a fully varifiable sport. But it wouldn't be anywhere near as satisfying, either for the skaters, or for the audience ..
Pang [img]graemlins/cat3.gif[/img]