No more Olympic pursuit?
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/lat ... mpics.html
The UCI has rightly been told to award an equal number of medals on the track to men and women.
The UCI has rightly been told to award an equal number of medals on the track to men and women.
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I know it's to do with the number of events they can include, so why can't they drop the road time trials, which are about as exciting as watching paint dry?
If a velodrome is built at great expense, why only allow 14 track events? Seems silly to me.
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and to be honest, the individual pursuit is no more or less interesting than the road TT - so if you binned the road TT you'd have the pro TTers on the track - actually Spartacus vs Brad vs Bertie on fixed, could be interesting
--Jens Voight
Still, as pointed out, compared to swimming, which has endless oportunities, it is amazing that we have to rob Peter, to pay.........Paulette.
I like this write up, especially the bit about Vicky P's opposition.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... -gold.html
Same here, points race is my favourite track event by some way. Think BC could be happy though (even with the loss of IP), as those are events we've been less successful at because they're not so predictable or quantifiable in terms of training and preparation.
OOooooh, you are awful........but I like you!
The whole 'parity' thing is a joke in any case given that the criteria for the inclusion of a 'male' event in the Olympics is much more stringent than that for 'female' events. So, if men and women competitors were to be treated equally, the effect would be to drastically reduce the number of female competitions. It all sounds a lot like 'positive discrimination' in action. (Which of course is a weasel term used to justify plain old discrimination!).
Criteria for Inclusion
To be added to the Summer Olympics, a sport or discipline must be widely practised by men in at least 75 countries on four continents and by women in at least 40 countries on three continents. To be added to the Winter Olympics, it must be widely practised in at least 25 countries on three continents.
A sport or discipline is added to the Olympic program at least seven years before the Olympic Games for which it is to be added.
To be included in the Olympics, an event must be practised by men in at least 50 countries on three continents and by women in at least 35 countries on three continents. In addition, it must have been included at least twice in world or continental championships. An event is added to the Olympic program four years in advance of the Olympic games for which it is to be first included.
http://www.hickoksports.com/history/olsports.shtml
I'm in favour of equality on the track, would love to see women's keirin, team pursuit etc. (team sprint with 3 instead of 2 would be good too). If something's gonna go, why not the madison?
Not too sure about freetyle bmx - love watching it, but would prefer to see downhill & 4x - races, not subjectively judged!
Can't see the point of having the sprint, team sprint and keirin. They tend to reward the same rider each time. I'd scrap the team sprint and keirin, but possibly re-introduce the kilo.
But so many of these disciplines are circus events, designed to entertain drunken Belgians during a winter's evening. Try explaining the madison - a condensed 6-day - to a stranger, they'll laugh. The Keirin is bizarre, riders lining up behind a fat scooter. As for the Omnium, it's not really the Pentathlon/Decathlon, it's rewarding very similar skills.
The Klébolympics, five events, male & female:
1. Sprint
2. Kilo
3. 4000m pursuit
4. Team pursuit, 4000m
5. Points Race
I'd make the distances equal, men and women do 4000m pursuit and the kilo.
More chances for this sort of thing.
Should reintroduce the men's kilo, though. That's a definite.
It was either it, or the men's road ITT.
Now....there's an option.
I know swimming is worse, there's next to no difference between the 50m,100m and 200m efforts, all are above-threshold stuff. And then they don't just reward the fastest swimmer in the world over a fixed distance, they have medals for each difference stroke! That's like having seperate hopping and skipping races in athletics, alongside the running.
I think the Olympic TT is a bit of a bore too. But since each sport seems to have all sorts of weird disciplines (eg different medals for throwing a disc, a spear and a hammer), cycling should be pushing for more medals, even if it means having the cycling version of an egg-and-spoon race.
Agree about bringing back the kilo, and equalising the distances.
If we're gonna lose track events, madison should go and am not convinced about team sprint.
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How on earth does/did it reach these criteria?
"widely practised by men in at least 75 countries on four continents"
The pursuit's a true "Blue Ribband" event, if anything needs binning to make space for the extra women's races, then chuck the Omnium, that'll free up space for the kilo to come back too!
Cycling cash linked to Olympics
By Matt McGrath
BBC News
A BBC investigation has raised concerns that a cycling event may have bought its way into the Olympic Games. Documents given to the BBC suggest that $3m (£1.5m) was paid by organisers of a Japanese cycling event to the UCI - the world cycling body. The payments were allegedly made in the 1990s. The event, called the keirin, was supported for inclusion into the Games by the UCI, and admitted in 1996.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7525072.stm
See also:
http://www.thetakeaway.org/stories/2008 ... -olympics/
And which 46 would they be as I think you are way off!
50,100,200,400 Freestyle both sexes. 8 races total.
1500 Free Men/800 for Women. 2 races.
100 and 200 on Fly, Back, Breast both sexes. 6 total.
200 and 400 IM both sexes. 4 races.
4x100 FS and Medley relays both sexes. 4 races.
4 x 200 relay both sexes. 2 races.
10,000 metres open water both sexes. 2 races.
28 races (thought forgive me if I missed a couple). Athletics probably has more.
Now BMX..that's a wicked Olympic Sport FFS.
Your
"100 and 200 on Fly, Back, Breast both sexes. 6 total."
should be 12 races so that takes it up to 34.
'tis true.
Looking forward to the other "holes" in my maths to make it 46.
He should have said 'aquatics' rather than swimming on it's own. Swimming's governing body FINA also control diving, synchronized swiiming and water polo - which brings it up to 46.
Kind of like the UCI having road, track, MTB and BMX.
Seriously, why are there so many swimming medals for different strokes? Why not just award a medal to the fastest over the distance regardless of style? Or maybe FINA could push for new medals in "doggy paddle" and swimming with armbands too?
So all blokes who do ballet are "puffs"? I know several water polo players who train with synchro swimmers (mainly because of the amount of totty I reckon but it could be to strengthen their legs) and I am sure if there were men's synchro there would be plenty of guys that would like to do it.
Why don't they just have medals for the fastest over a distance regardless of style? That's just daft, we may as well combine mountain biking and road cycling plus unicycling and tandems etc.
In every other major swimming calendar event there are even more events (all the 50's instead of just FS, open water 5,000 etc) so they really ought to be adding stuff not taking it away.
Clearly they have it wrong with cycling, but moaning about other sports isn't the way to go surely?
If you read what you quoted, I actually said "swimming" and not swimming.
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Erm - they DO that. It's called "freestyle".