Usain Bolt (Is there a point when an athlete becomes too good?)

Now, I'm not an expert on this sort of thing, and I know I'm probably gonna piss people off by saying this, but to quote Frankie Boyle regarding Usain Bolt:

"He's just pointlessly fast"

This applies to other athletes of similar ability in other sports, but for some reason I think Usain is too good to compete. What's the point in watching a race if you KNOW who's going to win? It just seems so galling for the other athletes, all of whom have probably trained just as hard as Usain, to go into a race they know they're going to lose (Unless Bolt himself makes a mistake like the false start incident not long ago)

Maybe I'm just missing something.

I don't know about big stars, but I have experienced this on a small-scale level.

The choir I used to be in has this annual competition, for soloists and emsembles. Each category had a winner and a runner, up, and then there was an overall winner.

In the last few years the choir got kind of cliqu-ey and annoying. But the real trouble was that one girl almost always won the competition. It wasn't favouritism (at least, mostly not) - she just always pulled out really flashy crowd-pleaser songs and had bags of talent to go with them.

It got to the point where you knew she would come first in any category she entered and probably overall as well. It became annoying. Sure, there was always second place to compete for, but it made it just that little bit less likely that you'd place at all, and it took away some of the suspense. "Oh, Jane Starlet won again. Surprise surprise."

I don't see how you can stop it though. You can hardly ask them not to compete anymore.

edited 3rd Sep '11 5:59:04 AM by LoniJay

Or maybe they could compete, just not against other people. Focus on breaking their own records. Put the people who are that good on a seperate tier.

Lightweight boxer don't fight Heavyweights after all

I've felt (and heard) the same thing about Michael Schumacher, Mike Tyson and Tiger Woods, during their heydays. Worst IMO was Mike Tyson because he was arrogant, really outstayed his welcome and beat his opponents so fast you barely got to see a match at all. At least with Usain Bolt it won't last as long as others because you only get to be in your running prime for a handful of years.

I disagree OP, that gets rid of the entire point of competing in the first place.

The best competitor is supposed to win, yes, Bolt is amazingly fast, but saying he's too good to be allowed to compete just sounds like sour grapes on behalf of the losers to me.

So long as he isn't cheating, he deserves to keep on winning, because he's the best, and he deserves that recognition as such whenever he competes.

So... we're applying the concept of a Scrub to real life sports?

I'll pass, thanks. Like Barkey said, it's an incentive to do better...

Dude, if you love running, so what if you're running behind Usain Bolt? The rest of the pack will set themselves personal goals like "finish three meters behind Bolt". Then it's "finish two metres behind Bolt" and so on.

Basketball players didn't give up playing because of Michael Jordan. Linguists didn't stop trying to push the field because of Noam Chomsky. No field, sports or otherwise, grinds to a halt because an exceptional member breaks all previous expectations. Rather, the bar is raised, and you get a new generation of kids entering because they want to be that guy.

I found myself agreeing with Barkey and USAF here; it increases competition, and thus encourages a generally higher standard.

It does suck for the audience, though.

Why? Look at MJ. Best basketball player in the history of everything, and yet he still lost.

And that's the beauty of it. If he does win, you rub it in their faces. If he loses, you got to see something truly spectacular: the fall of a giant...

Because for most people in the olympics you've stopped running for fun as running has turned into cocaine for you.

The sort of people who do running as a job probably don't enjoy it all that much, as its something that you constantly have to push yourself (and cripple your body in the long term) to be good at. Same as any other proffesional sport.

And the important difference is that basketball players can specialise in other things and won't always be competing against MJ. Whereas Runners in the 100 metres are (at the highest level) ALWAYS going to be racing against Mr Bolt.

edited 3rd Sep '11 9:56:23 AM by JosefBugman

Every runner wants to go up against Usain. You know why? If they lose they can say "No biggie, it's Usain." but if they win? "I BEAT USAIN BOLT! I AM NOW PRESIDENT OF EVERYTHING!"

But I'd assume that runners would want to be praised in some way, for all the hard work they've put into their craft. The audience only ever seems to care about who wins. Up against Usain, they have NO hance of winning.

And the guy SLOWS down near the end of his races, how insulting is that?!

Has Usain EVER lost?

edited 3rd Sep '11 10:38:07 AM by gingerninja666

^^^

Not necessarily, most people who get into running like that do so because they love it. Just like a true basketball champion loves the game, a true olympic runner loves to run, just like Bolt.

I don't like the precedent doing something like that sets to be honest, might as well just go "Fuck it, everybody gets a medal and we're all winners because we competed, we're all the best!"

I don't like that attitude, you compete for the competition, so you can truly know that you were the best, and be recognized for it. There can only be one person in first place. I don't like the concept of downplaying the truly outstanding achievements of others because they blow everyone else away, if anything that just highlights exactly how damn good they are. Every record is broken, Bolts will be no different, some cheetah of a human being will come along and either beat him, or beat his records after he is retired.

edited 3rd Sep '11 10:40:20 AM by Barkey

Indeed. If you're only in the game to win, then you have bigger problems besides losing to this one guy who happens to be better than you.

Everybody isn't equal. Games aren't supposed to be fair. It's supposed to be an equal opportunity (no cheating), not an equal outcome (no being simply the better player).

Neither do i, nor would I suggest it, but for the most part if you are not going to win despite all the training you put in then why bother? You may as well just pig out on oreos and lard, its not going to mean you are going to ever beat Mr Bolt.

Though this might be more tied into my views on proffesional sport (I don't like it, as its both boring to watch and the people involved just end up hurting themselves for others to cheer at).

And why should someone bother competing if they are only going to lose? I am not trying to ask this as a deep question, more as a specific one. Mr Bolt is going to be the one who gets the accolades, the sponsorship deals etc, so what practical reason is there beyond pride?

Your doing it as a proffesion, do you honestly think that most of the people have ANYTHING besides training that they do? The olympics is a celebration of narrowly focussed human beings doing what they have spent months and years training for, not ordinary or talented people doing something they love.

edited 3rd Sep '11 10:47:33 AM by JosefBugman

And that's another thing, I'm not sure that anyone can actually beat Usain, he honestly seems to be the fastest person ever, and I'm not sure that the human body can get much more perfect than him. What if he is the pinnacle? That makes all the other racers meaningless. Their achievments will mean nothing.

Because at its most basic, this is people who are less talented complaining that they aren't as good at the sport.

In a few years, he'll be out of the game. Nobody is a professional athlete forever. In the meantime, I will not condone punishing people for being better than you are at a specific action.

So would you also say that people complaining about monopolies shouldn't because the people who own it are "naturally" better at it? Look, I am just wondering why people would bother showing up. Surely there are other things to do with their time? And tbh Bolt doesn't seem to have the most punishing regimen and can STILL wipe the floor with people, by the looks of it, he could well be in the running for a very very long time to come.

edited 3rd Sep '11 10:57:55 AM by JosefBugman

Argeed. The great Mr Bolt hasn't ruined the competition, he just rises the bar. The better taste of the defeat his rivals endure today is only going to make his inevitable successor's victory taste all the more sweeter.

The record-breaking achievements of today become yesterdays based standards.

False equivalence. Unless Mr. Bolt is cheating, he's not like a monopoly. Most monopolies are created through underhanded tactics, and sports =/= economics. Also, there is such a thing as a natural monopoly, where it's not even worth it to try and have a bunch of different corporations...

I'm thinking in terms of entertainment value I apologize. (I am a troper after all, my sense of reality sometimes wanes) When a race is even, the contest comes down to who wants it more, and who put more effort into their training. It can be close, exciting, harrowing, all that good stuff. but at the moment I tune into a race, see that Usain is racing, then instantly think: "he'll win" and change channels.

I'm not undermining his achievments, I merely think that we should put him on a different level, a level higher than everyone else.

edited 3rd Sep '11 10:59:55 AM by gingerninja666

"So would you also say that people complaining about monopolies shouldn't because the people who own it are "naturally" better at it?"

That's a horrible comparison. In sports, some people are just better and will beat you, get over it.

And in business, some people are just better at it, and will beat you at it.

I don't really see the flaw in the analogy.

True, I apoligise/