Paris 2024 Summer Olympics

[waxman]

Attachment 497344

uh, gender is considered sociological not biological...can of worms opened...

[Danno]

This story about Olympic hoops & table tennis is delightful: No, You Can’t Beat an Olympic Table Tennis Player



https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/s...D.vb3xyIDTrry6

No you can't beat up a bear or beat at an Olympian at their sport

Back in high school, I was a very good ping pong player (not olympic level of course, but way beyond casual player). I had a friend that ran track and somehow we got to arguing about ping pong, I told him I would bet my life savings (at that point maybe $1000) against his $100 that I could beat him. He thought I was crazy, that he would have a chance of beating me and it would be reckless on my part to bet that much at those odds. I asked him if he would make the same bet in reverse on a 400m race and he said yes (because of course he could beat me), but he didn't understand that it was the same thing. I ended up playing him for no money and the score was something like 21-2 (I hit a couple of balls off the table).

/sweet blog

People who are awesome athletes tend to think they are better at other sports than they actually are.

[dan_pdx]

Had a somewhat similar experience at a bar with a foosball table. I asked a friend to play, he demurred, said he had played a lot as a kid including formal competition and it wouldn't be an even match. Got him to play anyways, he was right. We played two a side and it would still be 10 to zero with him playing the goalie and defense

[abraham]

So I guess the right wing outrage machine has moved from the opening ceremony to something else?

Shiiiiit I'm falling behind, I'm still angry about a Smurf. I think.

Back in high school, I was a very good ping pong player (not olympic level of course, but way beyond casual player). I had a friend that ran track and somehow we got to arguing about ping pong, I told him I would bet my life savings (at that point maybe $1000) against his $100 that I could beat him. He thought I was crazy, that he would have a chance of beating me and it would be reckless on my part to bet that much at those odds. I asked him if he would make the same bet in reverse on a 400m race and he said yes (because of course he could beat me), but he didn't understand that it was the same thing. I ended up playing him for no money and the score was something like 21-2 (I hit a couple of balls off the table).

/sweet blog

People who are awesome athletes tend to think they are better at other sports than they actually are.

A friend's dad had a health scare when we were in high school, he got really into ping pong for exercise. Not really sure why he picked that, but it certainly worked for him. A couple years later they hosted an international level Chinese player for a few months while she was a pro in residence at his ping pong club. The skill level was on such a different level from what I'd seen in person before.

I've watched more of these Olympics than any before I think. Not saying a lot but we've watched maybe an hour a day in the evening. Swimming is more interesting with commentary from my girlfriend who swam. Gymnastics is always impressive but I don't know what I'm looking for in terms of deductions.

[The AD]

People who are awesome athletes tend to think they are better at other sports than they actually are.

And people who don't compete at all have no concept how much better these elite athletes are than them at any sport.

[dan_pdx]

Especially true for technique-heavy sports. I have no problem imagining that an elite track athlete can run faster than me. I definitely don't have the same intuitive grasp of the difference between me and an elite athlete in hand-eye coordination and technique for a sport like ping pong.

[4matic]

Fisher!!! Wow!!!

[summit]

Fencing! Surfing! Sailing! National pride and unity!

Plenty of geneticists have weighed in and said it’s not that simple.

https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/con...wyer-syndrome/

This topic has nuance, we'd agree.

Finding an outlier does NOT disprove sexual dimorphism. That is the problem with JONGs idiotic cartoon that shows sexual genotype/phenotypes as a broadly distributed binomial distribution, which it most certainly is not.

Your example is so rare (1 in 80K) that if you bring it forward for general societal rules, it is stupid to build rules around it because it is so rare. There are rarer sexual disorders, but not a lot. What would be rarer is having an outlier of an outlier case of Swyer syndrome with testosterone levels above female Olympic competition testing limits.

The problem with the Olympics is you are dealing with a small population of human outliers of a different type!

You have few choices if you want to fairly manage sex segregation in competitive sports. You can exclude from female competition anyone with at least one Y chromosome. Or you can exclude people who have current testosterone levels above 2.5nmol/L. Or you could exclude someone who went through male puberty. Probably you could exclude some combination with some exceptions.

Letting people identify as whatever sex they want for competitive sports purposes is anarchy and ripe for exploitation, and there are huge and undeniable psychological, social, and monetary incentives to abuse the system..

Abusing the system does NOT appear to be the case with Khelif. She appears to just being who is, made as she is.

[truckeelocal]

Ah back to the good old days when the East German women showed up clean shaven.

[old goat]

The situation with Khelif is that we don't know what testing she has had, let alone the results. Which is fine with me--no one should have to have their medical data, especially details about their sexual apparatus--freely available to the general public unless they're running for President I suppose. In this case we have to trust that the IOC (gag) has reviewed the data and made a just decision.
Now about those Chinese swimmers . . .

[The AD]

I feel like there are two possibilities regarding the IBA's test: 1. they're embarrassed to say they did a dick check, or 2. they're completely full of shit. Based on past history I'd say #2 is more likely.

[fomofo]

People who are awesome athletes tend to think they are better at other sports than they actually are.

This guy's pretty good, but I don't think even he would get many (if any) points off an Olympian.

Ah back to the good old days when the East German women showed up clean shaven.

Much needed comic relief! LoL

[The AD]

On a completely different topic, my wife was telling me about how she read that Paris is comparatively empty right now largely due to Olympics event ticket prices being too high and/or people being scared away by assuming it would be chaos. She was showing me lots of prime AirBnB listings to be had more or less right in the heart of Paris for around $150 US per night! If I lived anywhere in Europe I'd go just for the experience.

[Danno]

And people who don't compete at all have no concept how much better these elite athletes are than them at any sport.

[m2711c]

seems a reasonable request

[dan_pdx]

seems a reasonable request

Yeah, I volunteer to be the regular person for canoe cross

[summit]

I'll do Pentathlon!
I'll even compete against the women and still finish dead last! (and they'll pull me out of the cross country running event for taking too long).

eta nvr mind, 2024 has horse jumping back in place instead of obstacle course racing... I can ride a horse around, but not do fancy shit

[old goat]

How about pole vault.

[fomofo]

How about pole vault.

Hmm, AI-generate a series of Rob Schneider You can't do it! vids? Pole vault sounds like the perfect start.

Watched some trampoline this afternoon. That would be pretty good too.

[mcski]

The chick crashing at the end was a wild glory to bust moment

[Danno]

Rowdy Gaines is a fun announcer to listen to, so much enthusiasm.

[old goat]

WR in a heat of the mixed 4x400 is pretty cool, with an Olympic rookie teenager running anchor. Yeah I know the race has only been run for 7 years, but still cool. They gotta let the same four run in the finals.

[bodywhomper]

No comments about the mens triathlete that yacked on the finish line front and center on camera. I bet the camera man caught some on his shoes. I think he was in the top 20 of finishers. My kids had to watch it 3 times.

[dunfree]

I feel like there are two possibilities regarding the IBA's test: 1. they're embarrassed to say they did a dick check, or 2. they're completely full of shit. Based on past history I'd say #2 is more likely.

The Russian controlled and funded IBA decided she failed after she beat a Russian boxer. And that she retroactively failed a 2022 test.

[old goat]

I'm waiting for a presidential candidate of some country or other to demand that another presidential candidate take a DNA test.