Society/Culture Sport: Arbitrary, Needless or Essential?

[Boston tiger]

It’s a great vehicle for social change. Indigenous round / Muhammad Ali etc

 

[Brad Goodman]

Somewhat related

The 'mind blowing' Paralympics scandal threatening the integrity of the Games

Former athletes and officials tell Four Corners the system of Paralympic classification is flawed and easily manipulated.

www.abc.net.au

Didn't click the link but was the Spanish basketball team mentioned?

 

[Mateyman]

In response to the OP, yes sport is all of arbitrary, needless and essential

 

[the_interloper]

It’s a great vehicle for social change. Indigenous round / Muhammad Ali etc

Boxing is a sport where "diversity" was thrust upon them, goes way way back to when Jack Johnson won the HW title over 100 years ago in Sydney. They used to have a "colored" world title and a white one, but those damn black guys were too good at boxing, didn't make sense to keep them out anymore where dough could be made.

Of course the Sydney crowd racially abused Jack Johnson at the time apparently, not surprising i guess.

 

[faible]

Didn't click the link but was the Spanish basketball team mentioned?

Nope, singled out a couple of local athletes as examples but I'm sure there's many, many more.

 

[Frank Bunn]

Is this the future for sex segregation in sport? Biological women can compete fairly against each other. But if they are good enough they can compete against men in the open category.

Swim England will introduce an ‘open’ category for transgender athletes to compete against born males, and preserve the ‘female’ category exclusively for athletes who were born female.​

​

In a move that goes further in higher-level competition than swimming’s international governing body, Fina – which has excluded transgender athletes from women’s competition if they have gone through male puberty – Swim England will simply have two categories: ‘open’ and ‘female’.​

​

There will no longer be a specific ‘male’ category.​

Swim England transgender policy features ‘female’ and ‘open’ categories

Sharron Davies welcomes ruling that means women's category will be exclusively for athletes who were born female

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Gethelred]

Is this the future for sex segregation in sport? Biological women can compete fairly against each other. But if they are good enough they can compete against men in the open category.

Swim England will introduce an ‘open’ category for transgender athletes to compete against born males, and preserve the ‘female’ category exclusively for athletes who were born female.​

​

In a move that goes further in higher-level competition than swimming’s international governing body, Fina – which has excluded transgender athletes from women’s competition if they have gone through male puberty – Swim England will simply have two categories: ‘open’ and ‘female’.​

​

There will no longer be a specific ‘male’ category.​

Swim England transgender policy features ‘female’ and ‘open’ categories

Sharron Davies welcomes ruling that means women's category will be exclusively for athletes who were born female

www.telegraph.co.uk

I don't mind this as a solution.

 

[faible]

Is this the future for sex segregation in sport? Biological women can compete fairly against each other. But if they are good enough they can compete against men in the open category.

Swim England will introduce an ‘open’ category for transgender athletes to compete against born males, and preserve the ‘female’ category exclusively for athletes who were born female.​

​

In a move that goes further in higher-level competition than swimming’s international governing body, Fina – which has excluded transgender athletes from women’s competition if they have gone through male puberty – Swim England will simply have two categories: ‘open’ and ‘female’.​

​

There will no longer be a specific ‘male’ category.​

Swim England transgender policy features ‘female’ and ‘open’ categories

Sharron Davies welcomes ruling that means women's category will be exclusively for athletes who were born female

www.telegraph.co.uk

That's pretty much what I've said the whole time, the male category is effectively the open one anyway and then we specifically limit access to the female category for performance purposes to those born female.

 

[the_interloper]

Is this the future for sex segregation in sport? Biological women can compete fairly against each other. But if they are good enough they can compete against men in the open category.

Swim England will introduce an ‘open’ category for transgender athletes to compete against born males, and preserve the ‘female’ category exclusively for athletes who were born female.​

​

In a move that goes further in higher-level competition than swimming’s international governing body, Fina – which has excluded transgender athletes from women’s competition if they have gone through male puberty – Swim England will simply have two categories: ‘open’ and ‘female’.​

​

There will no longer be a specific ‘male’ category.​

Swim England transgender policy features ‘female’ and ‘open’ categories

Sharron Davies welcomes ruling that means women's category will be exclusively for athletes who were born female

www.telegraph.co.uk

Seems fair to me. I mean in practice nothing will really change of course except for some rare circumstances, but seems reasonable to me.

 

[Roobs321]

Freestyle itself is an open stroke (save medley). Almost everyone does the crawl because it’s the fastest, but you could butterfly or something if you happened to be superhuman at it.

 

[Kram]

Is this the future for sex segregation in sport? Biological women can compete fairly against each other. But if they are good enough they can compete against men in the open category.

Swim England will introduce an ‘open’ category for transgender athletes to compete against born males, and preserve the ‘female’ category exclusively for athletes who were born female.​

​

In a move that goes further in higher-level competition than swimming’s international governing body, Fina – which has excluded transgender athletes from women’s competition if they have gone through male puberty – Swim England will simply have two categories: ‘open’ and ‘female’.​

​

There will no longer be a specific ‘male’ category.​

Swim England transgender policy features ‘female’ and ‘open’ categories

Sharron Davies welcomes ruling that means women's category will be exclusively for athletes who were born female

www.telegraph.co.uk

Sounds good.

 

[Partridge]

It's true that at times in the past women have been excluded from playing certain sports for similar reasons they were excluded from other roles in society. But it's been decades since this has been a factor in either society or sport, at least in the West.

Segregation by sex in sport is different, and is still current. It's largely based on physiological differences between males and females. On average, males tend to have greater height, muscle mass, strength, and endurance compared to females. Separating male and female athletes in competitive sports based on their biological sex has been comprehensively adopted by sports organisations. It allows females to compete against each other rather than against males, where they would be at a significant disadvantage.

Pretty much no one is seriously arguing for the end of sex segregation in sport.

No one with either a functioning brain or experience in that sport.

 

[Partridge]

Boxing is a sport where "diversity" was thrust upon them, goes way way back to when Jack Johnson won the HW title over 100 years ago in Sydney. They used to have a "colored" world title and a white one, but those damn black guys were too good at boxing, didn't make sense to keep them out anymore where dough could be made.

Of course the Sydney crowd racially abused Jack Johnson at the time apparently, not surprising i guess.

There's a great book called "Unforgivable Blackness" about Johnson (very good documentary by the same name as well). He actually came to Australia for fights in 1907 as well. It has some of the newspaper headlines, they make for interesting reading.

 

[Purple7x08_24]

Where sweat becomes shared language, victory a fleeting mirror, and defeat a shared crucible, humanity finds a microcosm of itself, playing out its triumphs and tragedies on a field of green, hardwood, or ice.

 

[Seeds]

Its not essential. humanity has done well enough without it for a long long time.

needless is just an antonym of essential. so if not essential it therefore must be needless.

doesnt mean i dont enjoy some of it immensely though.

 

[ferball]

Its not essential. humanity has done well enough without it for a long long time.

needless is just an antonym of essential. so if not essential it therefore must be needless.

doesnt mean i dont enjoy some of it immensely though.

AFAIK the earliest records of professional sportspeople come from China around six thousand years ago.

There are interpretations of cave paintings that claim they depict sport that are over 10000 years old.

Many tribal/hunter-gatherer civilisations had ample spare time after meeting their basic needs so there's no reason to assume games like Marn Grook haven't been around for tens of thousands of years as well.

 

[Seeds]

AFAIK the earliest records of professional sportspeople come from China around six thousand years ago.

There are interpretations of cave paintings that claim they depict sport that are over 10000 years old.

Many tribal/hunter-gatherer civilisations had ample spare time after meeting their basic needs so there's no reason to assume games like Marn Grook haven't been around for tens of thousands of years as well.

I would be pretty confident that over 99.9 percent of the humans that have lived have never participated in organised sports. organised sport is the definition i thought we were using.

Now if you want to count games involving physical activity as part of sport then sure its essential just as learning to walk is essential and working together in teams is essential. But if thats the definition of sport we are using then its kind of obvious its essential isnt it? That definition would make this thread a bit redundant as a topic to raise.

 

[ferball]

I would be pretty confident that over 99.9 percent of the humans that have lived have never participated in organised sports. organised sport is the definition i thought we were using.

Now if you want to count games involving physical activity as part of sport then sure its essential just as learning to walk is essential and working together in teams is essential. But if thats the definition of sport we are using then its kind of obvious its essential isnt it? That definition would make this thread a bit redundant as a topic to raise.

If games have rules and are played at regular intervals as part of a cultural behaviour then they're organised, not spontaneous.