A look at the field from another planet

A sporting theme in our newspaper is a rarity. But - happens. This time even a small discussion turned out. Our constant author Lev Klein, apparently, knows how to speak at any topic interestingly and energize. In his material, it reflects by no means a rare point of view of the “Party of Sports Lovers”. He is opposed by Ilya Mirmov, one of our main curators of this, not quite ordinary direction for a shell.

When I spoke in a discussion against antinormanism in 1965, our position was actively supported by the elderly employee of the Institute of Archeology Gali Fedorovna Korzukhina, the granddaughter of the famous Russian artist. During the discussion, the audience was cursed, and Gali Fedorovna was a fat woman, and in order to pave our ally the path to the department, she had to pull her in front and push her from behind. She was a large and bold scientist, a specialist in ancient Russian art. She lived next to the institute, on the palace embankment. Suffering from heart and suffocating (died about four decades ago), during her life, however, she was vividly interested in football, knew the composition of all the teams and strictly watched the game table1. Without visiting the stadium and, of course, without participating in any sports competitions, she successfully predicted the results of matches2.

For her, this was simply a curious application of her analytical abilities. The same as the habit of monitoring the barges and steamers floating by the windows. She knew their schedule for sure and recognized them by beeps.

But how did it differ from those fans who are massively fill in the gluttonous bowls of stadiums, yell and rage in them, guarded by thousands of employees of the Ministry of the Interior, or jump and swear near TV screens? Only behavior. They do not have relations with physical education and sports as it is 3. Given their usual addiction to alcohol, they have even less attitude to physical education and sports than she had. Burn adrenaline - and that’s it. Football for them is not an physical exercise, not a sport, not a game, but just a sight. Exciting, but sight. Show.

I am writing this note in the continuation of my article in the subject and No. 3 (72) for February 15. And here I move to some general considerations that involuntarily begs if you look at all this through the eyes of the scientist - or, if you like, an alien: soberly, objectively and detached4.

Why this is all called sports is incomprehensible. Sport is a volleyball court or a football field in the courtyard, tennis courts in the neighborhood where you can go to stretch, maintain a form, and strengthen health5. Our stadiums have nothing to do with health. They have nothing to do with the nomination of samples, ideals to follow, for which the Olympiads in ancient times were designed. And our current Olympiads and championships give out the laurels of winners and medals to specially trained professionals who do nothing else and no longer capable of anything, to which ordinary people cannot reach their “sports”, so they cannot be samples. In addition, although officially we are talking only about personal championship, from the power of the championship of small groups - teams, in fact, everyone understands that the entire pathos of victories and all the excitement depend on the competition of countries associated with the stimulation of national patriotism.

And here we are in wait for two stupid deceptions. Firstly, for some reason, the calculation (at least in Russia) is carried out by the number of medals to the country, although it is quite obvious that this does not show the true development of this sport in the country, nor its real unity. They divided Germany in two - so there were two not the most powerful teams, but the country united - and the team immediately became twice as much as 7. What is the use of comparing Russia with Luxembourg? This is unfair and unreasonable. It is necessary to calculate how many victories per capita are on average!

And the second deception is with the legionnaires. Clubs and prefabricated teams of countries are constantly bought by the players. So what is the competition? In the thickness of the wallet? It is quite obvious that if you compete with countries in sports, then how many strong athletes are brought up. And this means, firstly, to allow only its citizens, and not mercenaries, to speak for the country. Secondly, to allow only those who were born in this country as a citizen of this country and brought up in it8. Thirdly, discard professionals, because their perfection does not show the level of mass sports9.

What, in fact, were so delighted by our rulers and some of our population from allegedly unheard of good luck - there is the right to conduct the right to hold the Winter Olympiad in 2014 and the World Cup in 2018? What will be the income from the sale of teleinformation about these events? He is unlikely to block the costs of conducting, especially in our country with its thieves' construction. What, a lot of things from the constructed can be used later? But is it impossible to build this and so, without an injection of the Sochi Olympics in one buttock and the world championship - to another? Paralyzed, or what? You can even better-not limited to sports and entertaining objects-hotels and funicular and giant stadiums, and first build something more compulsory-hospitals and maternity hospitals, terminals and kindergartens, roads, roads and residential buildings10.

And even surpasses any sober understanding of the passion to throw crazy money on foreign coaches and craftsmen to score goals-after all, everyone is paid a year for which you can build a half-fighter or keep a research institute. I’m not talking about sick children, for the treatment of which the radio asks for alms daily, since the state does not have money for expensive treatment. I know that we are not alone here - they pay no less than football stars abroad. But these are countries where medicine is at the level (where our patriarch went to be treated), where people are provided with housing not as an example of ours, where roads are built a century ago, where there are industry, where cars and computers make. Anyway, throwing money in packs in this show industry is stupid (looking from another planet), but at least there is extra money for stupidity. They can afford. And this is not permissible to us.

It would not be a pity if this money went to strengthen the health of youth, to true sports and physical exercises (although mental exercises are no less important). So not for this and not for that.

Gali Fedorovna exercised her analytical abilities, counted penalties and goals, received distraction from a serious study of ancient art, without bothering anyone and completely free -just as she followed the schedule of the courts according to the Neva (however, this habit was risky -it could just be accused of espionage). But she received for her main works (recognized in science by classic) that there are hundreds and thousands of times less than young guys, obedient to the coach and exclusively aptly beaten their feet (and sometimes with their heads) on the ball1111.

Lev Klein

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A look at the field from this planet

Lev Samuilovich, as always, is debatable. And sometimes, like any passionate dispute, his emotions are still overlapping. So much so that I wanted to write a comment.

Let's go directly in the text (see footnotes).

1. It is obvious that our respected author loves, to put it mildly, not very and, apparently, therefore does not want to delve into the nuances too much. Still, for the scientist, the accuracy of terminology is one of the basic components. The table is “tournament” or “final”. For Games, for example, a schedule has.

2. The accuracy of the “predictions” of the results of matches, as practice shows, is in no way related to either analytical abilities, or even with the level of professionalism of the “predictor”. The best “predictor”, with an accuracy exceeding 90%, was, as you know, the octopus Paul (apparently, according to Lev Samuilovich’s logic, marine cephalopods have incredible competence in football). But the title of the “king of football” Pele became famous for the fact that almost all of his forecasts turned out to be incorrect ...

3. Traditional for the "non -colleague" and a completely non -correct generalization. I myself am not enthusiastic about the phenomenon of “sports fanaticism”, but in this case I dare to argue that at least 90% of the comrades visiting the stadium to one degree or another are playing sports themselves - it is precisely in the “amateur” concept that our respected author mentions below (footnote 5). As usual, mixing the concepts of “sports” and “physical education”. Sport, of course, is an activity for the elect, which, nevertheless, is very popular among the masses as a spectacle.

4. But just “soberly, objectively and detached” to look at the problem of Leo Samuilovich. The approach prevails not scientific, but the most emotionally executive.

6. Not an argument, sorry. With the same success, a similar reproach can be incriminated, for example, to Grigory Perelman. You have given out, you know, a million dollars (“Winner and Medal laurels”) to a specially trained professional who does not do anything else and no longer capable of anything (except to solve old scientific puzzles), to which in his “sport” to ordinary people not to reach.

7. In the words of the author, "a stupid deception." The team of a separate GDR almost competed on equal terms with the United team of the USSR according to a general -listent test. After the unification, Germany became, oddly enough, weaker (including because it abandoned many derived East German sports methods).

8. Well, the concepts of clubs and national teams are very confused. In prefabricated, the number of so -called naturalized athletes does not exceed several percent. But clubs, in almost any sports, without a sufficient number of strong legionnaires, are elementaryly incompetent in the sense of their tasks (victories to the delight of the audience and for the glory of the hosts).

9. I will not be repeated about “sports and physical education”. And in fact, Lev Samuilovich proposes to introduce a “ban on profession” for a huge number of people. Alas, unfinished! A sports professional is no less competent than any other, and has all civil rights.

10. A large and sore topic requiring more than a dozen publications. It is strange only that for completely unnecessary, according to our respected author, the events literally fight all over the world. Even those countries that are generally not distinguished by “thieves' construction” and provide their citizens with a completely tolerable standard of living. And these countries are very terribly upset when they lose: England, for example, remaining without World Cups, and the German Munich, who did not receive the 2018 Winter Olympics, and “roads, roads”, I think, will be built even in Russia. But they would hardly have been built, if we didn’t have Olympics and the World Cup, in which the sport, by the way, is completely not guilty of.

11. But here I am ready to join Leo Samuilovich and demand that the salaries of researchers are equated with the salary of players at least the first league. One, however, I have a doubt: will there be tens of thousands of spectators on our experiments on measuring the flow of solar neutrinos, laying out several dozen cu. in solid currency for each monthly measurement cycle?

Ilya Mirmov,
A little scientist, fan, athlete-warehouse