Ultimate Debate #2: Summer Olympics (pro) VS Winter Olympics (con)

Thank you for accepting! I sure do hope this is a “Ultimate Debate”. As the rules state, we can state up to 3 points. Here it goes: (1) The summer olympics is much more world friendly. To use the most accurate data possible I will be comparing the 2012 London olympics to the 2014 Winter Olympics. “Around 10,500 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) took part, (79 countries acquired at least one medal: gold, silver or bronze) surpassing the 1948 Summer Olympics in London and the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester as the largest multi-sport event ever to be held in the United Kingdom” {1} 204 NOC’s. Impressive.Now let us see 2014 Sochi’s. “A record 88 nations qualified to compete,which beat the previous record of 82 set at the previous Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The number of athletes who qualified per country is listed below.” {3} 204 VS. 88, not very fair, 88 is not even close to 204! You see, not many countries can participate in the winter olympics, almost every african and middle eastern country can participate. While the number of participating countries is increasing, It still cannot include every single NOC. This is for two reasons. 1- The weather in african and middle eastern countries make it difficult if not impossible to train. 2- The money situation. 3- The adults in these countries were raised playing summer games, meaning that they teach their kids these summer games only. “ There are 146 countries that have won an Olympic medal: 145 have summer medals, but only 45 have winter medals. You need not only snow but money to train for many of the winter events.” {2} Take ice hockey, which is a which is a winter sport, vs. soccer ,a sport which is played by every country. Only countries that have cold weather or countries that have a lot of money can play ice hockey, while with soccer all you need is a ball and a field! A lot of countries can only afford the soccer, while with winter sports you would need artificial snow, equipment, trainers, who is going to pay for this? The government? In many countries people can only play the sports that they know, or have the right climate for. I mean, skiing? Curling? Summer olympics suit the world much better than the winter olympics. (2) We all hate when judges decide who did the best in a certain competition. We might not agree, and there is and can be bias judging. “Too many winter events are determined by judges. Figure skating, snowboarding, and freestyle skiing are three of the more popular sports where the winners are decided by votes.” {2} There has been many scandals in the winter olympics for judging. “In the figure skating pairs competition, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia won the short program over Jamie Salé and David Pelletier of Canada. During the short program, Salé and Pelletier had tripped and fallen on their closing pose. Because the fall was not on an element, it did not receive a deduction, but it marred the program enough to land the pair in second place behind Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze. In the free skate, Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze made a minor, yet obvious, technical error when Sikharulidze stepped out of a double axel. Meanwhile, Salé and Pelletier opted to skate to "Love Story", a free skate program they had used in previous seasons and that had been well received at the Grand Prix Final before the Olympics. They skated a flawless program, albeit one that some experts considered to be of lesser difficulty than the Russians'.[1] Salé and Pelletier received 5.9s and 5.8s for technical merit, while the Russians received mostly 5.8s and 5.7s. However, the Canadians received only four 5.9s for presentation versus the Russians' seven. Presentation was weighted more heavily than technical merit, so the Canadians had needed at least five 5.9s in presentation to overtake the Russians for first. Since they did not receive that many, Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze took the gold and the Canadians won silver….during the live broadcast, both the American (NBC Sports' Tom Hammond, Scott Hamilton and Sandra Bezic) and Canadian (CBC Sports' Paul Martini and Barbara Underhill) announcers proclaimed that Salé and Pelletier won as they finished and expressed outrage when the judges' marks were announced.[2][3][4][5] There was immediate suspicion of cheating, according to ABC's Good Morning America and USA Today. Judges from Russia, the People's Republic of China, Poland, Ukraine, and France had placed the Russians first; judges from the United States, Canada, Germany, and Japan chose the Canadians. Suspicion fell quickly on the French judge, Marie-Reine Le Gougne. When Le Gougne returned to the officials' hotel, Sally Stapleford, chair of the International Skating Union's Technical Committee, confronted her. Le Gougne had an emotional breakdown in which she allegedly said that she had been pressured by the head of the French skating organization, Didier Gailhaguet, to vote for the Russian pair regardless of how the others performed.[6] She reportedly repeated this at the post-event judges' meeting the next day.[6] It was alleged that this was part of a deal to get an advantage for French couple Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat in the ice dance competition that was to follow a few days later.”- {4} This is just one of the many scandals that happen when there is judges in the olympics. But because the summer olympics has less judges at less important sports, it makes the Summer Olympics superior because there is less undefinitive ways of deciding winners. (3) Cost is important. The host country’s have to be able to build and be ready for the world’s biggest sport’s competitions. Let us look at the figures for the last two olympics: Summer Olympics, In London (2012) “£8.92 billion” {5} Which is $11.76 billion US dollars. Not cheap, but compared to this: Winter Olympics, in Sochi, Russia (2014) “US$51 billion”- {6} 51 billion dollars! Jeez! This next part of this argument ties into argument #1. It is simple: More countries can afford to pay 11 billion dollars than 51 billion. Simple as that. I think we have proven our point. DDD References {1} http://en.wikipedia.org... {2}http://www.blueridgeoutdoors.com... {3] http://en.wikipedia.org... {4} http://en.wikipedia.org... {5} https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com... {6} http://en.wikipedia.org...