As the sporting focus of 2008 comes to a close I think it is time I shared with you a theory I have been working on. In the spirit of clarity, and as a fairly good wind up, I have been trying to work out what exactly is a sport.
Ordinarily, as a good Englishman this isn’t a problem because the answer is always "cricket, and everything else is for oiks" but bearing in mind that I now live in Australia and some of the local obsessions have been rubbing off on me (except for the thing with the marsupials, which will never feel right to me) I have been forced to rethink and revise my position. So during these 17 days of the 2008 Olympics whenever one of the 38 sports being contested is shown on TV I have been raising a perennial question – "but is it a sport?".
I’ve long been harbouring a theory which I know I stole, I just can’t remember where from, and it has been holding up well enough recently to this scrutiny that it is time I put it on the web for you all to wonder at and agree with.
Todd’s law of sport states that if it needs a judge to to decide who wins it isn’t a sport.
Harsh, but fair, I think you’ll find. I welcome any corollaries in the comments below.
Update: Just as I wrote that I happened to glance at the BBC live page for today’s events in Beijing only to read this – "1245: Anon (see below), I think the valid reason was summed up inadvertantly by the Canadian commentator on the synchro final. When the Spanish team hit the pool, she remarked on how they “draw you in emotionally”. How can you have a sport in which the judges are affected emotionally? That’s not sport, that’s theatre."
I would just like to point out that umpires in Cricket are in fact judges – Aren’t they required to decide if the player is out or not, except for obvious cases of being bowled or caught.
Secondly I would then question weather a referee – is in fact a judge.
I do not think the theory holds up very well.
Au contraire. If an umpire is required to interpret the rules of a game and decide if a score is valid then it’s still a sport. It is where the judge solely determines the outcome of the event where they fail.
Perhaps I should revise my definition to say “where a judge is required to solely produce a score that decides who wins it isn’t a sport”. Will that do?
I agree with the theory. In light of the outrageous events at the Belgian GP it is obvious that F1 is, without doubt,anything but a sport and on that note I officially declare a total lack of interest in it from now onwards.