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The Water Cooler
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Least favorite Olympic Winter Sport
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<blockquote data-quote="Dave70968" data-source="post: 2413417" data-attributes="member: 13624"><p>Nobody ever fought a war from a dogsled.</p><p></p><p>I meant it. The games--traditionally--are a test of combat skills. Swordsmanship, spear-throwing, archery, firearms, hand-to-hand combat, running (useful both to immediate combatants and for command-and-control when messengers were the only decent way to communicate; look up the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon#History" target="_blank">history of the marathon</a>), swimming (naval/marine combat), horsemanship (cavalry), etc. Skiing makes sense for alpine troops, the biathlon even more so. Weightlifting--raw strength, from when combat was hand-to-hand. Other games have been added, but even they are just a proxy for combat: move a marker past an objective while the opposition tries to stop you.</p><p></p><p>Look at the history of the events, and the "softer" events are all more recent additions (typically post-1980, though a few came earlier). The modern games started just before the turn of the century, and were largely combat-related events, a throwback to the ancient games.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dave70968, post: 2413417, member: 13624"] Nobody ever fought a war from a dogsled. I meant it. The games--traditionally--are a test of combat skills. Swordsmanship, spear-throwing, archery, firearms, hand-to-hand combat, running (useful both to immediate combatants and for command-and-control when messengers were the only decent way to communicate; look up the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon#History"]history of the marathon[/URL]), swimming (naval/marine combat), horsemanship (cavalry), etc. Skiing makes sense for alpine troops, the biathlon even more so. Weightlifting--raw strength, from when combat was hand-to-hand. Other games have been added, but even they are just a proxy for combat: move a marker past an objective while the opposition tries to stop you. Look at the history of the events, and the "softer" events are all more recent additions (typically post-1980, though a few came earlier). The modern games started just before the turn of the century, and were largely combat-related events, a throwback to the ancient games. [/QUOTE]
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