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Sexta-feira,
19/8/2016
The enneathlon
Felipe Pait
+ de 1100 Acessos
The decathlon is an interesting Olympic competition that I had not paid attention to before. I only saw the finals because I was watching the 800m and the 1500m, which are the only events that I enjoy in the Games. The end of the event, when the athletes collapse and then hug each other, is particularly remarkable. I have 3 things to say.
1 - It appears that the decathlon and the heptathlon are scored in a questionable manner. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-scoring-for-the-decathlon-and-heptathlon-favors-running-over-throwing/
The alternative scoring methods proposed in the literature seem, at 1st inspection at least, to be both convoluted and sophomoric. Let us sketch a scoring method that is intuitive, independent of arbitrary performance levels or of whether the goal is to obtain a large or a small number, and has a certain a posteriori inevitability. For each competition, the performance of a certain sample population would have a probability distribution function. Points would be awarded on the basis of the likelihood of the performance achieved by the athlete in each event. Multiply the probabilities of the performances of a competitor in each event, invert, and here you have! the total score.
A normal distribution could be used as the scoring standard. In this case suppose that an athlete scored, in each of 10 events, a result 1 sigma above the average. That would give a probability of .31 for each event, or roughly 120 thousand points, in line with the idea that an athlete who can perform significantly above the average in all of 10 events must be exceptional indeed.
2 - The attention that the media and, perhaps, also the spectators give to a rather uninteresting event such as the 100m dash is remarkable. The decathlon is complex and spread over 2 days, so it is not really a spectator sport, but the middle distance events have a lot more to offer. The cult of personality around sprinters must be worthy of a serious investigations as a comparatively inoffensive prototype of serious social pathologies.
3 - A really challenging sports event would combine athletics such as a sprint and a distance run, a couple of other land and water events, and mindsports. Since the term enneathlon seems to be essentially unused, I suggest the 100m dash, mile run, high jump, 42km bike, 1500m swim, 2000m rowing, chess, Go, and poker.
Postado por Felipe Pait
Em
19/8/2016 à 00h39
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