Sport?

Both dictionary.com and the American Heritage Dictionary suggest two key aspects when defining sport. One, physical exertion. The other, abiding by a set of rules.

So as I sit (note the verb) watching the Olympics, I pondered the oddity of sport. Especially Olympic sport.

You can break them into two categories: the objective and the subjective.

The objective sports are easy. The strongest, fastest, longest, highest, farthest, or most points wins. No problemo. Clear the bar in your allotted tries and you win. Knock the bar off? Loser. Touch the wall first, even if by .01 second (!?!), gold medal. Half a fingertip behind at 30 mph? Silver (a classy way to say you didn't win).

I watched the women's marathon Saturday (from the sofa). Awesome. Especially considering this 38 year old Romanian finished her 26.4 mile race in a wee bit more than 30 minutes more than it takes me to finish my 12.4 mile canyon run every year. That's nearly twice as fast twice as far. Ouch. But there was no doubt about who won. She completed her lap in the "Bird's Nest" as her nearest competitors had entered the arena.

Which segues into the blur that exists within the subjective sports. What makes a sport "subjective"? The line of "impartial" judges from "impartial" nations who likely have as much experience on the ten-meter platform as I do determining the quality of the dive, vault, dismount, sow-cow or jab. Who wins? Does performance matter. Yes, yes, without qualification, yes!

But...

What if the judging isn't as impartial as we'd like to hope? What if it's just bad? Inconsistent? Who's best? Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Do the punches connect for one boxer but not the other? The wacky nature of subjective sport was as obvious as an Ali knockout in women's gymnastics, especially regarding Nastia Liukin's silver medal. I've read about why she got second place though she had the same score as the gold-medal winner (you can read it here), but I did not understand the judges gymnastics. I guess that makes me uniquely qualified to subjectively critique their subjectivity.

Here's the deal: I love them both, objective and subjective! These folks are monsters. Michael Phelps and his 24-pack abs. Sixteen year old pixies doing things I could only do if I were computer-generated. Usain Bolt blasting the 100m record to pieces while relaxing during the final 30m. The men's gymnasts have muscles overlapping muscles to do the surreal things they do on the rings. As a former hockey player, I've done some of the things I've seen from figure skaters but usually it occurred after I was clocked by an opposing defenseman. Then I usually ended on my can and not my blades. And I'm even a sucker for curling and badminton, too (pseudosports? Chess, anyone?).

I just wish there was someway to objectively quantify the subjective sports.

Kill all the lawyers.