An Olympic-Sized Grievance 

By Sarah McVeigh

Hello, all my sports fans! I have missed you dearly. Life looks a bit different now … I welcomed a perfect baby girl in January and took a brief hiatus from sports and writing to focus on, well, survival. Please bear with me—for the past month, my vocabulary has been limited almost exclusively to the lyrics of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

But something happened recently that snapped me out of my postpartum haze. If you’ve ever had a baby—or even been in the general vicinity of one—you’re likely familiar with postpartum rage. Usually, it’s triggered by a lack of sleep. This time, it was triggered by my husband and his opinions over at “McVeighing In.”

There I was: keeping our daughter alive, feeding her for the 12th time that day, minding my business, and watching the Olympics. It just so happened to be the Women’s Figure Skating Short program. My husband pulls out his laptop, starts typing away with a smug little smirk, and begins “just asking questions” about the scoring. Then, he drops the bomb: He believes there should be no “judged” sports in the Olympics.

If my husband had his way, the Games would consist strictly of timed sports (swimming, speed skating, track) or objective team sports (hockey, basketball, curling).

For those of you who are new here, I grew up in the world of “judged” sports. If this moron had his way, we’d lose figure skating, gymnastics, diving, and even snowboarding and skiing (which involve style points!)

Well, Mr. Factologist, let’s look at the facts. Judged sports have been part of the Olympics since the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, with gymnastics. Figure skating debuted in the Olympics in 1908! Your beloved basketball was not part of the Olympic Games until 1936. Over the 20th century, the Games didn’t move away from judging—they leaned in more, adding diving, artistic swimming, and rhythmic gymnastics.

Judged sports require something extra. Imagine if a hockey game wasn’t just about the puck hitting the net, but also about the style and grace of the skater. While that image is objectively hilarious, it highlights the point: judged athletes have to be perfect AND precise.

I am not saying that one sport is more difficult than the other, though I suspect that’s the hill my child’s father wants to die on. My argument is that every Olympic sport is incredible. (Except maybe curling—it’s too confusing, but that’s an article for another day.)

Have you watched ski jumping? These people hurl themselves into the abyss for distance, yes, but they are also judged on their body position in the air. Look at the “Quad God” Ilia Malinin or the legend Simone Biles. These athletes aren’t just competing against a clock; they are competing against the very limits of human aesthetics and physics.

The modern Olympics weren’t created just to see who could run the fastest in a straight line. They exist so that every country can send its best to prove what the human body is capable of—whether that’s measured in seconds or in the perfect landing of a quadruple jump.

The Olympics aren’t about which sport is “better.” They’re about the pursuit of perfection and the love of one’s country! But if my husband says one more word about “subjectivity,” I might just have to judge his diaper-changing skills on a scale of 1 to 10. (Spoiler: It’s a 2.)