Be Excellent To Each Other

I am at the Beach Volleyball with APOD. We have pork rolls and cider. Bring it on

To be fair, gymnastics isn't that bad, at least you can usually tell when they fucked up. Dressage? I'm positive their scoring guides include deductions for being a bit brown, looking a little too lower class, and not having enough cousins in their family tree. Cos I can't make head nor tails of their scoring if it's based on their actual routines.

I don't think you're likely to encounter a robust defence of dressage here, to be honest.

You would if I were near a computer.

It's something to do with how well they've nailed their clothes on I think.

Are you talking about the riders or the horses?

I have a slight problem with dressage for the simple reason that I always think the Olympics should be a display of human physical skill. That might include using apparatus and tools (bikes, a pole for pole vaulting) but with dressage it's different in that it is largely also the skill and temperament of the horse. Not solely, but partly.

Put briefly: the horse makes at least some of the physical effort.

No, the rider controls the horse completely.

The horse makes no physical effort?

So. I started this thread throughly underwhelmed, went through various stages of disgust at the cost and corruption of it all, got pissed off over the likely disruption to my London commute, and i'm not a huge sports fan anyway, so didn't get at all excited about 2 solid weeks of it.

Currently I'm loving it Opening ceremony was awesome, sport has been great so far, crowds have been nothing but excellent (those who have turned up anyway ) I'm watching it all the free time I get and even though we haven't been pulling the medals so far, i've been extremely impressed with Team GB. Best thing is just how magnanimous they have been in defeat, and how overwhelmed they have been when they do well.

Yay for the London Olympics!

I'd say Bobby is correct in dressage. I think in the modern pentathlon there is a pool of horses but other things it is horse and rider. In dressage, it's a demonstration of the rider's skill on a horse, not the horses ability to learn stuff by rote, which might be what you are saying. All ask my horsey chums on Facebook.

[quote="MaliA"]it's a demonstration of the rider's skill on a horse, not the horses ability to learn stuff by rote, which might be what you are saying./quote]

Except it's not what I'm saying. Part of the physical skill, literally the motor that drives the movement, provides the energy for the performance, is not human.

Also, I've seen a lot of dressage because they used to hold it at Wembley arena, and the school used to get left over tickets, and some times a horse will have a crappy day. It will decide, in it's animal way, not to do as it is told. Maybe it will make mistakes. The physical energy of the performance isn't all human, the mistakes might not be human, the decisions not all human.

Ok. My misunderstanding. I've asked if a good rider could win on a horse that thinks it is a dog and how much is rider and how much horse on Facebook, so I can canvas the opinions of my more horsey chums.

What about shooting, or archery?

And is it actually dressage, or part of three-day eventing?

Duh, both. The perfect dressage pair would actually be a horse and rider that are actual cousins. Both white, of course.

If a rider could take any old horse out of a field and get it to perform in dressage you'd have more of a point, but it would still come down to what performs the physical effort? Is it human alone?

It's clearly not. It's why I think bicycle sports are great for the Olympics but motor sports are not. Environmental factors aside (because you can't not have an environment, the wind and harnessing its power in sailing, for example, or the current in the kayaking) I want to see displays of human skill. Horses add too much independent power into the mix.

You think you can take any bike and win?

Is not training the horse some part of the skill?

You're assuming the rider trains it.

The power for an arrow is provided by the human drawing back on the bow. The measure of shooting events is aim. They don't measure how strong/fast the bullet travels.

nope, but you provide all the power to the bike. The bike doesn't have it's own motor.

You still need super-special tools, is my point.

of course. But nobody is suggesting that none of the skill is in the human handling or training. Of course it is. But to train the horse, the horse needs to be able to learn, therefore some of the skill of the learning and execution of moves is the horse's.

Actually, shooting and archery are kind of bullshit too. I mean those rifles and bows have more protrusions than Sputnik. They should be handed a stock AK47/unmodified longbow.

no you misunderstand me, Dressage is part of a show and measure of skill, the skill isn't about horse and man it is about horsemanship, the skill is mind-melding. The man must impose his will upon the horse with the power of his mind alone. That is why the scoring is so complex, leg and arm movements are illegal and show weakness. The truly masterful are need no reins.

I never suggested you wouldn't. But they don't make decisions, have bad days, take long lines of breeding lineage, provide the physical motor energy to drive the mechanics if the performance.

I think the horses should come from the same country as the rider.

FTFY. Best gun in the world.

oh, I understand what you mean, totally, and I don't disagree with what you're saying. I just don't think it fits with the Olympic idea of human physical achievement as part of that physical achievement is the horse's.

How about team sports, Means? You're teammates could have a bad day and you could lose through no fault on your own.

As long as every archer and cyclist has the same equipment, they're all on level pegging. You could give all archers a giant twig with some string and the best archer among them would still rise to the top.

A shit horse will bring any rider down to their level. You can try and give everyone the 'same' horse, but eventually one of them will have a paddy.

Your team mates might have a shit day -- but you're a team of humans, so I don't see how it contradicts mimi's point, as you're all working together proving your the best. The team might lose, but at that point you're not trying to win as the best individual, but the best team, so your team mates failings are your own, in a way.

I just meant it's a bit rubbish, to be honest.

Oh God, properly rubbish.

your team mates are humans, so it's still a test of human physical skill.

I don't mind it. It can be a bit slow and samey, but it can be good Sunday afternoon background TV. I just don't think it fits the Oh Limpets.

Yeah, it's much more deserving of the yay clams competition...

I'm not sure diving does, either. I've given it some thought, but it is basically gymnastics without the tricky landings.

I don't think you'll ever be able to come to any kind of satisfactory description of what is or isn't an Olympic sport beyond "is in the Olympics". Inclusion is all pretty much arbitrary and based as much on politics, tradition and other assorted bullshit as any particular aspect of the sport in question.

I rather suspect getting your landing wrong off a 10m board is going to hurt a fuckload more than falling off a pommel horse.

It's not as if horsey events aren't traditional

The air rifles don't, they've got very strict rules about what they can and can't have on them.

My rifle, the Feinwerkbau Model 700, is used by many of the Olympic shooters - all it's got on it is an adjustable shoulder stock with a butt plate on it, a rear sight and a foresight.

The amount of skill, hand-eye coordination and motor control that you need to get the sort of scores they were getting today (599/600 was the winning score in the qualifiers) is ridiculous. I'm a pretty good shot at 10m, and the highest score I've ever got is 541.

Don't forget that to get a 10 on a single shot, you're basically shooting a projectile that's 4.5mm wide through a hole that's about 6mm in diameter, from 10 metres away. One false move and you're in the 9 or 8-ring.

In other news, the just completed match in the Beach Volleyball between Russia and Switzerland was incredible.

Hockey players must be forever in danger of trench foot due to wet socks.

Apparently Olympians all eat a shitload of cheese. Fuck yeah, cheese!

After Friday's show, they'll be having nightmares about dementors.

They also have no idea how to hold a fork, they could have been Americans rather than Turkish on that display...

My wife holds her knife like a pen. It infuriates me.

I disagree with this in one particular instance... motorbike trials. The bike doesn't matter, really. Its all about the control over the bike. Motorbike trials would fit in to the Olympics much better than dressage, in my opinion.

I don't mind showjumping and cross country much, cos you can watch toffs hurt themselves when they fuck it all up.