I guess I can share an opinion on the actual topic too, as a die-hard liberal who’s probably supposed to be on the other side of this issue.
The IOC is fucking stupid. They’ve absolutely shit the bed on how they’re handling hormones in womens sports. The inclusion of Laurel Hubbard as a female athlete is beyond idiotic for all the reasons that have been stated in this thread, and the handling of Caster Semenya’s case is equally hair-brained.
The solution was shared about 5 posts into this thread. Born female and still female? Compete as a female. Everyone else? Compete as a male. That’s the only way you can reasonably accommodate trans athletes in any sport. I think the idea of a ‘trans division’ does not merit discussion. You either have to place all trans athletes in male divisions, or disallow trans athletes from competition and cite hormone manipulation as the reason (I clearly prefer the former, the latter would be pretty shitty).
I find this an interesting scenario. If you are going to let Caster compete but require her to take hormone suppression therapies then why bother with the male/female distinction at all - instead just have high and low testosterone (or whatever hormones are important) categories?
On a related note, my woke moment is I think the movie, TV, theatre, music, etc awards should remove male/female categories. Not sure why they have them… I figure males get more leading roles but they have quotas now
You guys wanna imagine how many women’s records will get completely, utterly obliterated if China decides to go along with it in the next one? I have no delusions TODAY that any authority in the world has the capability to catch them with their elaborately planned drug routines, bribery networks and info acquiring abilities.
God, I saw that one live. World Cup is basically the only soccer I will try to watch live (Essentially the Olympics of soccer). Just fucking ridiculous.
I don’t know why soccer refs can’t give yellow cards for diving. I’d hand them out like candy.
Same here but that was the last World Cup I watched. Only that bald Italian ref was competent IIRC. I placed a large bet on Brazil because the payout was shit due to the odds during the finals while simultaneously hoping that they’d lose. That’s not the way to enjoy anything lol.
That is completely accurate. I will not bet on sports though, there is too much craziness. Poker for me where at least the math is your friend to limit swings.
I dont want to turn this into a soccer topic. First of all I am a low division soccer player and last half season I was coaching as well.
Second, you gotta love how people from countries that have no soccer culure talk abou soccer. Thr World Cup is not the olympics of soccer. It is a low quality display of football due to the fact that it is national teams, who barelly play together. The Champions league is the highest display. Top clubs compete against each other in an year long format.
The diving is pretty much dealth with VAR. But to explain why it happens. Penalties for unsportmanship conduct and bad fouls are severe. These guys are professional and will do anythin to win.
Soccer is highly technical, tactical and endurance sport. Professionals run between 10 and 15 kms per game, and a lot of the running is done in short sprints 6 to 30 meters. All that while expected to do within highly structured tactical parameters a high display of technique with the ball. In other words the sport is very hard and demanding.
The pool of athletes is insane. Most counries bar US, Australia and few others have all of their boys play soccer. Almost half dream of becommimg soccer players. In my country with 7 milion population even the villages have soccer teams and gather between 50 to 500 spectatotors in home games. I am a coaching such a team and it is consisted of village boys and a few guys from the local town. Let me put this straight I have 5 boys at the age 14-17 who are competing with man in the regional tournament. These guys are very athletic and technical. I have a 14 year old that is 190 cm tall and gets to level 11 at the beep test.
In other words, the competition is insane to reach the top and the sport gathers the top ahletes worldwide. So diving is pretty dirty but legit tactic to help you win.
If you thing soccer is not physical I advice you to play some competitive level of it before judging. I play a central defender and usually foul almost every duel, because the sport allows it. That is kicking, pushing, pulling. I had 4 guys leaving with injuries after duels this season. It was not intentional, it just happens when you are allowed to play hard and duels happen at maximum speed or when your take a ball basically by makin a low kick to opositions ankles lol.
I live in a country where the only sport people really watch is soccer and played a lot of it when I was young. 2 countries, actually. Pele wasn’t the only one playing the game with coconuts barefoot when he was a kid.
I think I was the only one jokingly dissing the game other than the diving. Not sure how you didn’t get the sarcasm when I wrote a “real man’s game is curling”.
Pro curlers, go ahead. Flame on!
P.S, the fact that the World Cup pits all countries around the globe against one another would technically make it the “Olympics” of soccer.
Technically yes. But tactics and teamwork is extremelly important, thus national level of soccer is very poor. The selectioners are not really coaching. They literally select the most inform players of a country, trying to put a team that is cohesive enough to play under some basic instructions and tactics. They barelly train together and usually have 10 games before a major tournament, which is every two years. For these 2 years selections change, coaches and players as well.
