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mathew said..Chris 249 said..mr love said..
Awesome effort Grae, congratulations.
Re..the format....its exciting, no different to so many other sports where it all comes down to the grandfinal...
Yes, but in what sports does an unpredictable element have such an effect? The running track doesn't just change randomly in the middle of the race, for example. There's a very good reason why the whole sport of sailing moved away from events where just one short race decided the whole thing.
Surely if the final was a true test then it would closely mirror the results of the other races, but it doesn't seem to do so. One could say one may as well just have one race for the whole Olympics, or maybe just two or three.
Another point is that if people want viewers then why only keep them watching for one race? What's wrong with even a best of two, with the last race a tiebreaker if required?
Which other event - the 200m men's track. Noah Lyles dominating every race for three years, comes in bronze.
In the real world Noah was affected by his environment. He got Covid - if he and his support team wanted to make sure he didn't get covid, then he would have been isolating from everyone.
By your reasoning, the IOC should have just given him the Gold medal. Or at least waited until he had recovered, then re-run the race.
No, I did NOT say that.
You can control Covid to a significant extent as you say, so that was not uncontrollable. In contrast, the wind IS uncontrollable, as proven by the fact that no sailor has ever had an Olympics where they won every race as people do in other events. I think only one boat ever won 70% or more of the races in a modern Olympics, and that was in the '60s. That's not because the world's best sailors are muppets, it's because the sailing "arena" is unpredictable.
Noah didn't have 18 or so races at the Games at which he dominated the other finalists even under the pressure of the Olympics, like Emma did. Noah didn't run over a track that suddenly changed, like sailors do.
As an example of how even the best Olympic sailors cannot be consistent, the guy who was 2nd in one Laser race got about 38th overall, only making it into the top 36 in one other race. The guy who won that race was 19th overall. Matt Wearn, who won the gold easily, finished 18th in that race. In the women's Laser/ILCA, Marit Boumester won by so far she had it wrapped up before the medal race started but she still got 20th in the second-last race, and she seemed to be trying.
So we know for an undeniable fact that in sailing, even utterly dominant sailors who are clearly the best by a long way can still have terrible results in one or two heats, while people who normally finish consistently in the back half can finish first or second in heats.
SeanAUS120
> 9 months ago, 23 Jul 2024
