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The glory of... last place
Feb. 11th, 2006 07:18 amThat's not meant snidely. Here's an interesting site, tracking last place finishes at the Olympics in Torino. Why?
"Why am I doing this? For several reasons.
First and foremost, it's a real celebration of participation, that concept about which many of us sing platitudes but to which few of us assign any real value. Simply put, with very few exceptions, those who finish last at an Olympics are generally far better than the rest of us at their sport -- hence this site's tagline: "Because they're there, and you're not."
Second, as Matt pointed out when he posted DFL to MetaFilter last time (setting off the chain reaction that got this site noticed), and as others have noticed since, for athletes, it's a way of measuring themselves against the bare minimum competitive score at the Games. And vice versa. That's why I'm presenting the result -- the time, the score, whatever -- of each last-place finisher. Where possible, I will compare it against the gold-medal result, to give you a sense of how close the competition really was.
And third, it's a goof on the media's obsession on winning and winners, and on the mixed-up nationalistic attitude that equates a country's self-worth with the number of medals it wins at the Olympics (that means you, India). For that reason, I'll be tracking the number of last-place finishers per country. The country with the most last-place finishes at the end of the Games, erm, wins. Ties will be broken by the size of a country's athletic delegation, if possible -- i.e., a country with six last-place finishes but 40 athletes will finish "ahead" of a country with six last-place finishes but 80 athletes. This is a total goof, a satire, and should not be taken seriously, but boy was it ever taken seriously last time. (To recap, Greece won the final tally with 13 last-place finishes.)"
He's right. God knows I wouldn't mind a chance to come in last, given those circumstances.
"Why am I doing this? For several reasons.
First and foremost, it's a real celebration of participation, that concept about which many of us sing platitudes but to which few of us assign any real value. Simply put, with very few exceptions, those who finish last at an Olympics are generally far better than the rest of us at their sport -- hence this site's tagline: "Because they're there, and you're not."
Second, as Matt pointed out when he posted DFL to MetaFilter last time (setting off the chain reaction that got this site noticed), and as others have noticed since, for athletes, it's a way of measuring themselves against the bare minimum competitive score at the Games. And vice versa. That's why I'm presenting the result -- the time, the score, whatever -- of each last-place finisher. Where possible, I will compare it against the gold-medal result, to give you a sense of how close the competition really was.
And third, it's a goof on the media's obsession on winning and winners, and on the mixed-up nationalistic attitude that equates a country's self-worth with the number of medals it wins at the Olympics (that means you, India). For that reason, I'll be tracking the number of last-place finishers per country. The country with the most last-place finishes at the end of the Games, erm, wins. Ties will be broken by the size of a country's athletic delegation, if possible -- i.e., a country with six last-place finishes but 40 athletes will finish "ahead" of a country with six last-place finishes but 80 athletes. This is a total goof, a satire, and should not be taken seriously, but boy was it ever taken seriously last time. (To recap, Greece won the final tally with 13 last-place finishes.)"
He's right. God knows I wouldn't mind a chance to come in last, given those circumstances.
