![]() In sport, as in life, people might deem it perfectly acceptable that two things or phenomena are similar in relevant ways after careful evaluation. When relative abilities in an athletic contest are so similar that they do not warrant distinguishing a winner and a loser, forcing this distinction would produce a result not merited by the performance of the contestants… The comparative purpose of competitive sport is fully served by ties a comparison does not need to end in the establishment of superiority or inferiority. Torres and McLaughlin (2003) provided a review of the philosophical literature on ties in sport and made the following compelling defense of ties. The acceptability of these rule changes to athletes, coaches and spectators (for example, in terms of separation of the athletes at the finishing line) would also need to be investigated. For all events, the rule changes should exclude counting back, penalty shoot-outs, tie-breakers and any other methods for avoiding ties in the final. The variability of performance scores in other events between competitions would need researching to establish maximum score differences for medal sharing in these events. Most of the sharing (68%) would have occurred with male athletes, presumably because greater depth of competition with males results in smaller differences between athletes at the highest level. The men's high jump would have produced three golds. In these events, 10%, 14% and 14% respectively of gold, silver and bronze medals would have been shared. We have therefore quantified the medal sharing at the Tokyo Olympics that would have occurred if medals had been shared with such score differences (converted to rounded times or distances separating athletes in a final) in events with known variability between competitions (canoeing, kayaking, rowing, swimming, track and field events). When scores differ by ~0.1 or less of the variability in the score between competitions, the athlete or team with the better score would obtain a better score on average in only 52% of subsequent competitions, representing medals determined effectively by a coin toss. ![]() Medals in all events are decided by a time, distance or points score in a final. Rule changes that allow more medal sharing when athletes and teams are effectively equal in ability would improve the entertainment value of the Olympics, reward more athletes for their years of dedication to sport, and augment the Olympic ideal of fair play. One of the most inspirational moments of the Tokyo Olympics was the sharing of the gold medal in the men's high jump. 2College of Sport and Exercise Science, Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia. ![]()
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