The Big Question in Powerlifting: The Olympics?

[Goatamon]

Olympic powerlifting should be the clean & press and the deadlift. No racks to fuck around on. At least if I had my way, thats the way it would be.

I hope PL gets in there, but I don't think it will

[stuffedsuperdud]

Preeeeeeecisely. Neither the networks nor the IOC who feeds upon them are interested in hairy men doing "manly" things. Such things are just barely tolerated in polite society anyway, and there is certainly no room in popular culture for them. PajamaBoy is the embodiment of popular culture, and the media, and thus the IOC. Usain Bolt is only barely tolerated because he has no hair.

Rip, I'm not sure it's necessary to paint with this broadest of all strokes and essentially write off all of Western civilization as a bunch of PJ boys, as the Olympics are certainly not meant to cater to pop culture. The IOC for starters does not represent the gen pop: who has the time, money, and connections to spend all day serving as a wannabe diplomat? It's aristocratic douches. In this circle, manly sports aren't problematic for being manly so much as they are for being low-cost. Wealthy white people love winning at things impoverished brown people cannot afford to even play, right? Hence sailing and several forms of equestrian are in, but wrestling and WL are constantly on the chopping block.

Re: the target audience, again, it's not the gen pop. Who watches prime time NBC? Most folks are too busy to occupy their schedules with tape-delay footage of sports no one cares about or understands. Anyone born after 1980 and possesses a certain, easily-attainable level of technical sophistication certainly has no problem internetting his way to the events he wants to see while disregarding everything else (assuming young people care about the Olympics anyway, which they don't unless they are in a sport or are friends with an athlete). So who is it then? As far as I care, NBC's target audience is exclusively bored Middle America housewives. Belinda Johanson in Dayton, OH loves watching wholesome American boys swimming and skating, interspersed with footage of some guy training for God and deceased mother and perhaps a P&G Thanks Mom commercial or seven. An ugly mustachioed beige man with an unpronounceable name from a country she cannot find in a map lifting weights in a unit of measure which she cannot comprehend? No thanks.

But that doesn't mean everyone sucks. I mean, we did all unite in ridiculing PJBoy, and everyone can agree that (faux) hipsters should die of ebola, right?

[heman]

I trained full-contact karate, and there has also been people trying to get karate into the olympics. And it is interesting to see both that discussion and now the power lifting discussion (which I recently started to follow since my intrest in strength sports has been growing recently).

Here are a few points from the karate in the olympics discussion that I've followed in case you're interested:

background:
- There are many different karate styles, and they differ quite much, there is no one Karate.
- Karate competition events are kumite (sparring), kata (forms) and sometimes group kata (synchronized forms)
- There are two main categories of kumite competitions: Full contact and semi contact (point karate). Each style practises either full contact kumite or semi contact kumite.
- Full contact karate is a political mess, there are several styles and different organizations in each style.
- Several organizations have a world championship and claim that their world championship is the true world championship.
- Semi contact karate is less of political mess. I guess their biggest organization is in somehow comparable to IPF (honestly I don't know the details). They have four diffent styles, and they have established a set of rules so they can all compete in kumite an kata against each other, and I think they are quite established world wide.
- Both full-contact and semi-contact organizations have been trying to get into the olympics.


pros and cons:
- Some karate people like what the olympics have done for judo (and recently taikwondo too) while others don't (some see both pros and cons).
- There is for example just one judo. If you've trained in one place, you can go to a different club and continue with what you've been learning. (of course there are different coaching styles etc. like in all sports).
- It could be pratially thanks to the Olympics that judo is unified world wide.
- The Olympics have of course been a great promotion for judo.
- Judo and karate are essentially martial arts and not sports. Their intention is self defence not trophies. The sport is just one part of it.
- The Olympics have made judo training much more sports oriented (claim some). There is much less emphasis on self defence stuff that is not likely to give points in a competitions. For example there was some type of throw banned from competition recently (2008 or something), and as a consequence that type of throw would not be given as much training time, eventhough it could be very practical in a self defence situations. The same goes for ground grappling (newaza), which has gradually become less emphasised in judo training.
- There are though many judo clubs that are more traditional while others are more sports oriented. I think most fall somewhere inbetween on the spectrum.
There are also today some more sports oriented and some more traditional karate clubs even though karate isn't in the Olympics

[Mark Rippetoe]

Rip, I'm not sure it's necessary to paint with this broadest of all strokes and essentially write off all of Western civilization as a bunch of PJ boys, as the Olympics are certainly not meant to cater to pop culture.

Of course it is, you fool. The Olympics TV coverage is The Very Distillation of the previous 4 years' popular culture, raining down on the world for 2 solid weeks.

Wealthy white people love winning at things impoverished brown people cannot afford to even play, right? Hence sailing and several forms of equestrian are in, but wrestling and WL are constantly on the chopping block.

Have you paid any attention to the Nigerian Olympic weightlifting program?

Re: the target audience, again, it's not the gen pop. Who watches prime time NBC?

Of course it is, you fool, and it's all fucking day.

But that doesn't mean everyone sucks. I mean, we did all unite in ridiculing PJBoy, and everyone can agree that (faux) hipsters should die of ebola, right?

Only the legitimate hipsters get a pass? I am puzzled.

[Girtron]

[/QUOTE=The IOC for starters does not represent the gen pop: who has the time, money, and connections to spend all day serving as a wannabe diplomat? It's aristocratic douches. In this circle, manly sports aren't problematic for being manly so much as they are for being low-cost. Wealthy white people love winning at things impoverished brown people cannot afford to even play, right? Hence sailing and several forms of equestrian are in, but wrestling and WL are constantly on the chopping block.[/QUOTE]

It always comes down to the bourgeoisie taking advantage of the proletaritat, doesn't it?

[Simon Rest]

Let's face it: unless you're a lifter, powerlifting is boring to watch..... it takes fucking ages.

think of all the time this affords the broadcaster to discuss the detailed history of each lifter, and their personal struggle to make it this far.

[Kyle Schuant]

think of all the time this affords the broadcaster to discuss the detailed history of each lifter, and their personal struggle to make it this far.

And if it's a short woman lifter, they can call her the Pocket Rocket! And if there are 2 or 3 of them, they can call them Australia's Golden Girls!

But at the end of the day, the winner was the game.

I do love sports commentary.

[51M0n]

There's money in archery? Handball? Synchronised fucking swimming?!

If it's not about money, how else do you explain golf getting in. Golf is hardly a sport in need of a higher profile or a 'peak' event.

[16bit]

i think powerlifting would be a great olympic sport.

its much more relatable to what people might actually do themselves compared to weightlifting.

that said weight lifting is much more of a spectacle.

with wrestling almost being canned and pass-times like synchronised swimming still in the olympics its a pretty sad state of affairs.

i would like to see mma in the olympics but there is not way that is happening any time soon.

[mrflibble]

I do love sports commentary.

And of course we have to have the despicable "human interest" stories - find an athlete with a (diseased/dying/dead) (relative/friend/coach/person they met) and constantly bring it up to trigger that ratings-winning emotional reaction.