Olympics 2024
Comments
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There's quite a bit of cost that could be saved by pushing back on some of the IOC requirements. For example, not sure if Paris had the dedicated traffic lanes for officials to move from their plush hotels or whether it had the masses of prime empty seats reserved for the Olympic family.
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What's the point in joining the IOC if you aren't going to get bribes, gifts and VIP treatment? Surely that's teh only reason the Games exist at all?
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Lacrosse seems fairly popular here - they use our cricket pitch for it in the winter, and there's enough of them.
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I realise the question is slightly tongue in cheek, but I would hazard a guess that the IOC requirements could be scaled back slightly whilst leaving the feel of VIP treatment.
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Meh, a sport for which the aim is to brain-damage the opponent seems a little past its sell-by date these days, with our greater understanding of the cumulative effect of concussion.
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You could say the same for heading in football, and rugby. Lots of sports cause long term damage in other ways. Most gymnasts will get arthritis. Rowers will frequently retire with herniated discs, people break bones skateboarding, and there are paralysing or fatal crashes in skiing and cycling.
Where's the line? Head injuries only?
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Yes, exactly!
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Meh, the entire goal in pro boxing is knocking out the opponent. Generally injuries are an unfortunate side effect in other sports.
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But those injures are a result of misfortune not the result of your opponent’ trying to knock you out. Unless you are racing against the Dutch on the track😉
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Yes, I would draw the line at deliberate head injuries, given we've only got one brain, it's both miraculous and fragile, and it is who we are. Boxing is directly in the line of fire, as the objective is to knock the opponent out.
I've no idea if you could modify boxing so that head blows are red-card offences, but if the main excitement is in watching people get their brains damaged, with the other stuff (footwork, reactions etc) being secondary, then I'd say that the sport is morally unsupportable. At least in rugby and football, brain damage is not the principle aim, and at least they could be modified to reduce the likelihood (as is tentatively happening in rugby, and headers in football could be stopped).
Losing other parts of your body you can still be you, but without your properly functioning brain, you're not. (Having had one brush with that realisation, it's scary.)
I realise that people who participate in such sports will (understandably) be very defensive towards them, as they derive/have derived much pleasure from them in their current forms. But attitudes change to what is acceptable, as one might note about other sports that have fallen out of favour for understandable reasons.
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Seems to me that the total harm is the relevant measure. Not clear how high up boxing ranks on that. Below rugby, I would have thought.
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Any head contact, even unintentional in rugby these days, results in a sanction against the offender. Even completely accidental contact is deemed a penalty.
What do you mean by total harm, or aren’t boxers allowed to pummel their opponents bodies, anymore?
No doubt there is an art to good boxing, but that aim remains to beat your opponent into submission.
"Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
FWIW, a pupil of mine openly expressed in a lesson how fearful he was of his ex-pro rugby-player dad developing early-onset dementia. That kind of fear is on a different level from dealing with broken bits.
My guess for the future is that any sports where there's a statistically significant risk of EOD or other types of permanent brain damage will either be forced to adapt or will cease to be officially recognised and have (sue-able) governing bodies, as neuroscience and monitoring become more sophisticated, and those damaged by the sports increasingly turn to the courts. The brain's just too precious to be treated like the other body parts. (Not that I don't appreciate my other body parts, you understand.)
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I’m assuming (not googling but may later) that sword fencing must have made a decision to use technology to hand, and use sensors and buzzers etc. rather than just skewer or slash each other. Surely amateur boxing can use a bit of imagination and get sensors into gloves with increased shock absorption, and target area sensors on the body to help make the sport a bit safer and scoring a little more accurate.
Snowflakey I know, but I also appreciate the skill of a good technical boxer.
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Ah well now you are getting to the nub of it. I tend to agree regarding the brain. But I don't discount the impacts of physical impairment at a young age either.
Amateur boxing is not the only sport needing review.
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I completely understand people's views, but when you meet professional boxers, you realise they have no intention of hurting people. They have huge respect for each other and the sport, but yes you also have to concede it carries huge risk.
It is also a sport that is particularly effective at getting kids off the streets in some very difficult circumstances and teaches them self discipline and respect.
I still think it has its place, but respect others who don't think the same.
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Despite the apparent societal benefits for certain demographics, I'd argue that it doesn't outweigh the moral question of inevitably damaging brains. It's unavoidable when the top trump is a knockout.
For sake of argument, if hunting with hounds was shown to bring benefits to people who might otherwise go onto crime, would it make the 'sport' more palatable? Or is it just wrong, however you dress it up?
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Can we all.l agree that knocking someone unconscious isn't possible without hurting them?
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Ethnic minority, innit.
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Obviously all sports need to be continually looking at short-term and long-term risks to participants, and balancing/mitigating the risks with the essential nature of the sport, maybe making public the sorts of injuries typically suffered by participants, and how to minimise the risks on a personal level (as well as tweaking rules to mitigate known risks).
The trouble with the brain thing is that I really don't think most people realise how fragile 'you' (as a conscious being) are. My post-concussion syndrome made me realise how fragile the person I knew as 'me' was, and how quickly that person can disappear with just a bit of a shake of the brain.
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Ah, okay. Have been knocked unconscious a couple of times but I was always grumpy and introvert so I didn't notice any difference.
What happened to you, if you don't mind me asking?
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Somersaulted over the handlebars when a chain snapped while I was giving it full beans up a slope. Landed on the back of my head. Got checked out at the RD&E for concussion, given the probably all-clear, but wish I'd been given the very precise directions that young rugby players are now given if concussed, as to how to manage the first stages of recovery.
I'll not give you the full run-down of my PCS, and though I was glad not to be deaded, it was pretty grim at times. I ended up with two strategies - one was to think of my brain as a separate character I had to deal with and work out what it needed (I never really did, bloody awkward thing, other than just giving in to its moods and being unreliable with everyone else), and the other was to think of myself as being in a coracle with no paddles... I just had to deal with whatever weather came along and go wherever the sea took me. GP was brilliant - couldn't really do much other than reassure, but never moaned or hurried me when I turned up with a different symptom or just feeling really miserable.
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Personally I wouldn't use the hunting analogy as a fox has no choice. Boxers are human beings and have the choice to step inside a ring or not.
As you say BT, it is more a moral question as to whether any sport or sporting event that poses a significant risk of harm should be banned. I think that includes any contact sport which allows head contact. We have had discussion on various threads about other risky events such as the Isle of Man TT abd whether they should be banned.
I think it is a bigger moral question as to where, or whether we should, draw the line and ban sports, or whether we allow people to exercise personal choice around risk.
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Rugby is a better analogy because it takes young posh men who would otherwise be a bit overweight, drink too much and get into the occasional rambunctious brawl and.... Oh..
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Joking aside, rugby, much like American football, is the sport which may define the future of sports where head trauma is a major risk. Some potentially huge legal cases coming up with ex players taking class action cases against sporting bodies.
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Yeah okay, I just looked up the symptoms.
I think you damaged the wrong part of your brain, that was your mistake. If you'd been hit repeatedly in the face it wouldn't be so bad.
(That's in the rules of boxing, I think.)
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I do suspect that there's something fundamentally appealing about violence in sport. Both for the participants and audience.
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Yeah, I apologised to the road for hitting it with the back of my head. Poor choice.
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I had the good sense to headbut a tree with the top of my head.
I'd have been better to slide on the grass face down, I admit, because my nose would have helped scrub off a bit more speed.
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