OT: Olympics.

[Wheeled Warrior]

The Rubbish I am referring to is that Loader is not part of the conversation with the two most celebrated Olympians in New Zealand history, I am not saying that Snell or Halberg do not deserve their status.

Loader deserves more recognition for sure.

NZ Swimming will never reach that level again with all the Australians and Americans having their academies to rely on and continue to win.

 

[Meth]

Gender eligibility rules furore hits boxing after 46-sec stoppage

Two punches were enough to force Italian Angela Carini to abandon her bout.

www.nzherald.co.nz

Dudes beating the shit out of girls - that’s the Olympic spirit

 

[Meth]

A gold, silver and bronze- seems like a good day

 

[Penrose Warrior]

Gender eligibility rules furore hits boxing after 46-sec stoppage

Two punches were enough to force Italian Angela Carini to abandon her bout.

www.nzherald.co.nz

Dudes beating the shit out of girls - that’s the Olympic spirit

Imane Khelif, as far as I can understand, was born a woman but has DSD (disorder of sex development) which means she has heightened testosterone levels compared to an average woman.

I have zero problem with this, and I thought Caster Semenya (same 'disorder') was horribly treated, as well. This is genetic. Just like Yao Ming was 7'8, Usain Bolt had crazy long tib/fibs, Phelps had incredible lung capacity and a massive wingspan, or whatever, this person has heightened testosterone. Genetically, all of us in this forum have different natural T levels, and height, and slow/fast twitch muscle make-up, lung capacity, and so on. I don't see how this is any different.

Khelif was at the 2021 Olympics, and didn't win a medal. She was disqualified for heightened testosterone levels last year in an event, but again this was organic, not through supplementation.

I'm a fervent critic of athletes who transition from male to female sports and compete unfairly, but this is not that.

 

[Meth]

My mistake. Thanks

That detail wasn’t in the article

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

Imane Khelif, as far as I can understand, was born a woman but has DSD (disorder of sex development) which means she has heightened testosterone levels compared to an average woman.

I think whether she was "born a woman" is the whole point and the live issue here though isn't it? I don't pretend to be an expert on either Khelif or gender differentiation generally, but, for one thing, as far as I know she has XY chromosomes.

Basically, she has some physical markers of a woman and some of a man and so defining which one she is is difficult.

If you simply say "let her be the one she's always considered herself to be" that logic opens the door for trans athletes, which is the concern. The intractable problem as far as I can tell is there is no foolproof and universally accepted definition of what makes someone a man or a woman.

Comparing excess testosterone or XY chromosomes to other physical characteristics is not really helpful, because these characteristics are relevant specifically because they dictate gender. Gender is the one physical characteristic that we widely accept people should be divided by (unless you're in favour of getting rid of women's sport which I doubt anyone seriously is).

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

Also by chance I happened to see her fight live and the behaviour of the Italian was really weird. Initially she basically "called a timeout" and her trainer fixed her headgear, however I'm not sure there was actually anything wrong with it, and I'm pretty sure she should have been disqualified for calling a timeout anyway. Then she gets hit with one more sharp but not devastating shot, walks back to her corner and gives up. After the fight for some reason she seemed mad at her corner (hard to understand given she clearly decided to quit) and then after the decision she started crying and carrying on in the ring.

It was all very performative and seemed barely related to what actually happened in the ring. Even if Khelif is a devastatingly hard puncher for her division, the Italian was not seriously hurt or rocked and you just don't see a boxer who is serious about winning give up that easily.

This was either unrelated to Khelif, the Italian was trying to make a point (which seems insane when your Olympic dream is at stake), or the controversy psyched her out.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Gender eligibility rules furore hits boxing after 46-sec stoppage

Two punches were enough to force Italian Angela Carini to abandon her bout.

www.nzherald.co.nz

Dudes beating the shit out of girls - that’s the Olympic spirit

The Algerian boxer isn’t trans, she was born female. Sport is inherently unfair, those with genetic advantages win all the time.

 

[Beavers Headgear]

The girl that walked off had a Brent Tate chin, woundnt have thought that’s ideal for boxing

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

I'm now reading that it isn't confirmed that she has XY chromosomes at all. It's really hard to know what to believe these days with all the culture war stuff going on with this issue.

I'm still not entirely clear on what is meant by "she was born female" though, if a person's genetic advantages are made up of physical traits that make their biological gender unclear.

Of course the irony is that in the past someone like this would've probably competed as a woman with no issues, because it was as simple as female genitalia = woman. Transphobic people would have you believe that this is a new issue when in fact we are actually identifying intersex people who would've just been considered women previously.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

I'm now reading that it isn't confirmed that she has XY chromosomes at all. It's really hard to know what to believe these days with all the culture war stuff going on with this issue.

I'm still not entirely clear on what is meant by "she was born female" though, if a person's genetic advantages are made up of physical traits that make their biological gender unclear.

Of course the irony is that in the past someone like this would've probably competed as a woman with no issues, because it was as simple as female genitalia = woman. Transphobic people would have you believe that this is a new issue when in fact we are actually identifying intersex people who would've just been considered women previously.

“Born female” in this case means assigned female at birth and raised female, and presumably her gender wasn’t even questioned until later in life as she matured.

Important to highlight to separate it from the issue of Trans athletes and the attempts of people to conflate the two issues.

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

“Born female” in this case means assigned female at birth and raised female, and presumably her gender wasn’t even questioned until later in life as she matured.

Important to highlight to separate it from the issue of Trans athletes and the attempts of people to conflate the two issues.

100% - although I still think (and I say this from a position of relative scientific ignorance) that there can be a live issue about correctly classifying someone's gender for the purpose of sports even if they were considered female at birth.

 

[One Warrior]

Great win by the Sevens side, for a country our size we really should celebrate any gold medal, even if it turns out to be the only one we win.

Halberg and Snell were freaks in a small window before greater runners from Africa etc emerged who arguably used the Lydiard method (the controversy is that African runners do the Lydiard method naturally in terms of stamina and Arthur's world influence had nothing to do with that).

That aside there is no debate that Arthur Lydiard created NZs greatest runners we all know Lydiard revolutionized running by making endurance the base of all running sports in the middle distance sphere. Which is why countries like Finland credit Lydiard for his influence.



The New Zealand attitude and tall poppy mentality around Olympics goes like this:

Anything less than gold is a failure.

Any narrative that does not tie into this idea of punching well above our weight is a fail.

All NZ Olympians have to meet the national cultural identity by being humble and complete supplicants to the NZ media machine.

Ergo Snell was driven out of NZ as a private person by the media circus and constant public scrutiny.

Arthur Lydiard buggered off when NZ expectations demanded that he repeat his once in a century miracles every Olympics. This is a guy that was a revolutionary in world running coaches, a literal genius ahead of the rest of the planet, yet our culture sent him offshore.

John Walker hated the NZ media because as an outspoken confident personality he was labelled arrogant (I was close friends with Johns sister Margaret, a theater Nurse at Middlemore).

Then along came Danyon Loader the greatest NZ Olympian ever.

But the NZ narrative will not tell you that, the NZ narrative will say the middle distance runners Snell and Halberg are the best this country has eve produced.

That is absolute rubbish.

Loader won gold in the premier event in world swimming free style, he broke the world record in the two hundred then broke the world record in the four hundred, proving he was the sprint king and endurance king of the sexy events in the pool.

Loader is the only fastest New Zealander in the pool in any event, and he did it in two freestyle races. He was such an incredible athlete that he won Silver in the Butterfly, that would be equivalent to Snell and Halberg winning Silver in the hurdles (a completely different discipline).

Unfortunately for Loader he was on the Autistic spectrum, and at that time Paul Holmes was the voice of New Zealand.

Loader refused multiple Holmes show interview requests, which Holmes weaponized to call him arrogant, the same accusation that drove Snell to become an American college lecturer.

When Loader finally took that Holmes show interview Holmes attacked him.

So yeah, from my insights into the Olympics, New Zealand is a appalling country to try to be an Olympian because it is one of the only countries in the world that attacks its own athletes.

Something Australia never does, they circle the wagons and have the biggest and greatest ever bandwagon exceptionalism cheer leader squad in the Southern Hemisphere.

Loader is the GOAT because swimming is like running in the two hundred and four hundred with long periods where you are not allowed to breath during your Sprint.

Stuff all track sprinters would survive that war against water that Swimmers live in.

And Loader is the GOAT because in swimming every single event is decided in the hundreths of a second metric which means every single movement of your body has to be perfect in every single stroke. No Runner like Halberg, Snell, or Walker had to hold their breath for half the race and make every single stride technically perfect while crossing the finish line with four or five runners one half of one second apart from you.

Danyon Loader is New Zealand's greatest ever swimmer, very hard to win Olympic swimming gold. He held short course world records for the 200m Butterfly and 400m Freestyle, not long course 50m Olympic length world records.

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

Great win by the Sevens side, for a country our size we really should celebrate any gold medal, even if it turns out to be the only one we win.

Halberg and Snell were freaks in a small window before greater runners from Africa etc emerged who arguably used the Lydiard method (the controversy is that African runners do the Lydiard method naturally in terms of stamina and Arthur's world influence had nothing to do with that).

That aside there is no debate that Arthur Lydiard created NZs greatest runners we all know Lydiard revolutionized running by making endurance the base of all running sports in the middle distance sphere. Which is why countries like Finland credit Lydiard for his influence.



The New Zealand attitude and tall poppy mentality around Olympics goes like this:

Anything less than gold is a failure.

Any narrative that does not tie into this idea of punching well above our weight is a fail.

All NZ Olympians have to meet the national cultural identity by being humble and complete supplicants to the NZ media machine.

Ergo Snell was driven out of NZ as a private person by the media circus and constant public scrutiny.

Arthur Lydiard buggered off when NZ expectations demanded that he repeat his once in a century miracles every Olympics. This is a guy that was a revolutionary in world running coaches, a literal genius ahead of the rest of the planet, yet our culture sent him offshore.

John Walker hated the NZ media because as an outspoken confident personality he was labelled arrogant (I was close friends with Johns sister Margaret, a theater Nurse at Middlemore).

Then along came Danyon Loader the greatest NZ Olympian ever.

But the NZ narrative will not tell you that, the NZ narrative will say the middle distance runners Snell and Halberg are the best this country has eve produced.

That is absolute rubbish.

Loader won gold in the premier event in world swimming free style, he broke the world record in the two hundred then broke the world record in the four hundred, proving he was the sprint king and endurance king of the sexy events in the pool.

Loader is the only fastest New Zealander in the pool in any event, and he did it in two freestyle races. He was such an incredible athlete that he won Silver in the Butterfly, that would be equivalent to Snell and Halberg winning Silver in the hurdles (a completely different discipline).

Unfortunately for Loader he was on the Autistic spectrum, and at that time Paul Holmes was the voice of New Zealand.

Loader refused multiple Holmes show interview requests, which Holmes weaponized to call him arrogant, the same accusation that drove Snell to become an American college lecturer.

When Loader finally took that Holmes show interview Holmes attacked him.

So yeah, from my insights into the Olympics, New Zealand is a appalling country to try to be an Olympian because it is one of the only countries in the world that attacks its own athletes.

Something Australia never does, they circle the wagons and have the biggest and greatest ever bandwagon exceptionalism cheer leader squad in the Southern Hemisphere.

Loader is the GOAT because swimming is like running in the two hundred and four hundred with long periods where you are not allowed to breath during your Sprint.

Stuff all track sprinters would survive that war against water that Swimmers live in.

And Loader is the GOAT because in swimming every single event is decided in the hundreths of a second metric which means every single movement of your body has to be perfect in every single stroke. No Runner like Halberg, Snell, or Walker had to hold their breath for half the race and make every single stride technically perfect while crossing the finish line with four or five runners one half of one second apart from you.

Alright sup I'll bite, you've thrown out a lot of propositions here and I'll respond to some of them.

First of all you suggest that any gold medal is a bonus for such a small country and we should lower our expectations. Fair enough. You then criticise the "tall poppy" mentality. I don't follow. "Tall poppy mentality" suggests we disdain those who succeed, yet you've just said that we have excessively high expectations and demand that everyone succeed. This is pretty much the opposite of tall poppy mentality.

If tall poppy mentality instead means "we want people to succeed but we don't want them to go on about it" then I fail to see how it's a bad thing. I know that in reality a lot of successful people are pompous, arrogant, self-absorbed, sociopathic....I could go on all day. But I absolutely fail to see how preferring successful people to also be decent human beings is some sort of cultural hang-up. I think it's an absolute good. All people should ideally be modest, decent and personable. Those are positive traits.

If tall poppy syndrome means "we like it when our successful people are not insufferable cocks" then I say let's treasure tall poppy syndrome. I loathe the idea that successful people get free rein to be repulsive, insufferable or even just annoying individuals who are beyond criticism because of their success.

Sorry I know I've straw-manned a lot here but I'm just so over "tall poppy syndrome" being criticised with arguments that basically amount to "successful people shouldn't be criticised for being dickheads". Like, dickheads exist and there's nothing wrong with pointing it out.

 

[Meth]

It's really hard to know what to believe these days with all the culture war stuff going on with this issue.

Yeah, that's where I am too. I think, as a parent of daughters, I'm especially sensitive to this topic. In this particular case, it doesn't seem so straight forward.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

100% - although I still think (and I say this from a position of relative scientific ignorance) that there can be a live issue about correctly classifying someone's gender for the purpose of sports even if they were considered female at birth.

Yeah that’s a fair point. It’s just a very different issue to trans people in sport.