Definition Fallacies at the Olympics

[dr_c]

It is Winter Olympics time (or at least I assume they haven't done the closing ceremonies yet; which tells you how well I've been in touch with the games). And that means it's time for people to throw back and forth the usual arguments about "Is Figure Skating a Sport

Comments

[sreya]

Just giving Wetzel's column a quick read-through, I find it interesting that he seems to put figure skating at a level just lower than a sport because of the subjectivity of part of the scoring. If he wants to define "sport" on objectivity, though, it seems like figure skating, and similar competitions, should then be put on something just above a sport (if you're trying to create an heirarchy, which I think is silly), or something greater that includes "sport" within in, because there is the objective component - the technical score - and then there's the subjective component on top of that. Figure skating is, in that way, even more demanding than a clocked sport or a purely technical score sport, because you not only have to hit all the technical requirements and perform athletically, but do it in an aesthetically pleasing way. Which is more difficult and demanding, just performing a certain number of jumps and spins on the ice while skating back and forth, or performing them in conjunction with music and while making a connection with your audience?

I also think he's partially confusing athleticism and aestheticism, because if you have two jumps you're trying to compare that are both successful, most likely what he's thinking of being compared is how well the position is held, how straight the lines are, things that we may think of as being just subjective pretty things (do they look nice?) while a judge would be looking at it with a technically critical eye as to how well the jump is performed. Body build then isn't just a matter of beauty but a matter of actually being able to perform a stunt as intended. It's like (American) football that way - certain positions on the team get much taller, bigger built men not just because it's considered attractive, but that's the body type generally more suited to what's required by the sport.