Talk the walk 2
August 4th 2008 01:23
Race-walking superstar Jane Saville. Walkers are not 'sportspeople', according to bloggist Sports Insider
Sports Insider has proved himself here a believer in Voltaire's aphorism, "I don't believe a word I'm saying, but I'll defend interminably my right to say it." At least, I think that's what Voltaire said.
Sport is about people competing against each other in a physical activity according to a set of rules. We are all different, praise Nike, and therefore a lot of different sports exist. Some rely on strength, some on speed, some on balance, and most demand a bit of brain as well.
All, at Olympic level, involve passion and commitment and a natural ability which lifts you to the top of the standings in that event in your land. Sometimes, they involve lifelong sacrifices to a dream. Always, they involve an enormously powerful and driving desire just to be there.
It is many of these people that you, Sports Insider, lampoon. They excel at national and sometimes international level at sports which you don't find interesting. And for this reason you laugh at them.
You can assert as many times as you like that I am not as good as Mr T and I will not dignify it with a response. Whoever Mr T is.
But I am disappointed that you refuse to address my question: do you really consider yourself a sports fan?
To some of your individual points:
A sport needs to have a clear result, a final score or even a time. When judges are handing out medals based on their scores, it isn't sport.
You've lost me a bit. If it has a "final score" it's a sport, but if it has a "score" it doesn't?
If you are able to convince anyone that Synchronized Diving is a sport ...
I don't think I need to convince anyone that synchronised diving is a sport. If it's in the Olympic Games, it has gone through a process of nomination and discussion and scrutiny and acceptance by any number of high-level sports administrators and decision makers, including the International Olympic Committee. It may not be your favourite sport; it may not be my favourite either; but that doesn't make it any less a sport.
... then maybe the IOC will have you in their little clique.
Ouch, that hurt. You're right, I'd much rather join your clique.
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But I've disowned him. I've even cut him out of my will. I just can't waste any more time on someone who can't learn from constructive sarcasm.