Originally Posted by innerSpaceman (Post 235028)

And to me, frankly, all sport is but one stepped removed from punching your opponent in the face. The competitive nature encouraged in males by the indoctrination into the world of sport makes me ill.


Perhaps that's why I like gymnastics and diving best, where the competition comes from doing one's best just happening to be better than someone's else's best performed at a separate time or place, decided by another human being via imperfect means. I find this kind of stuff comfortably TWO steps away from punching each other in the face.



But it's still less admirable to me than the fella who hands a dollar to the homeless dude.



Sports. Feh.

Originally Posted by Alex (Post 235036)

Congratulations to Iceland, Bahamas, and Australia for taking the gold, silver, and bronze in total medal count, adjusted for national population. Sadly, the good old USA came in 29th but the evil Chinese came in a horrible 57th.

I've decided that to the degree I care about medal counts it is the number of physical medals (gross number of medals adorning necks from each country; e.g., winning the a basketball medal counts as 12 since 12 people get a medal) as a proportion of national population.
[font=Courier New]
And thanks to a four hour conference call I have to be on but don't have to participate in, a table of the results:

Originally Posted by Moonliner (Post 235745)

I don't remember them mentioning the sexual orientation of all the straight athletes and I don't feel snubed. Why would you expect sexual orientation to be mentioned as part of the Olympics coverage?

Originally Posted by Morrigoon (Post 235755)

Bravo for them not considering it relevant to an athletic event

Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis (Post 235761)

I sort of agree with both sides. There are two ways that sexual orientation merit mention at the Olympics: 1) a quick cutaway to the partner in the stands without comment; 2) as part of a human interest story about obstacles overcome if, indeed, there were obstacles. However, I don't think editorial comment along the lines of "And you thought gay guys weren't athletic" would be any more appropriate than praising our black swimmer with "And Al Campanis said blacks lack buoyancy."

Originally Posted by JWBear (Post 235780)

As SzczerbiakManiac said, It's because the sexual orientation of straight celebrities is mention, examined, promoted, and obsessed about continuously. The sexual orientation of gay celebrities – and gay sports celebrities in particular – is ignored and covered up. NBC went to great lengths to mention various straight Olympians’ significant others, but ignored Mitcham’s