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Comment by bathtub365 | Hacker News Reader

There is still a fair amount of luck in the Olympics. For example, in the winter Olympics, snow conditions are only somewhat in the control of the organisers and can have a huge impact on someone's performance. All you can do, as an athlete, is train in a variety of conditions to try to be ready

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Even in that case, every athlete has nearly the same conditions. Yes, over the course of a day, those conditions can change, but the organizers can control for that as best as possible. In your snow sport example:

> "The start order in the first run is determined by a combination of a draw and your standing in World Cup rankings. For the second, the top 30 skiers start in reverse order (so the 30th person goes first) to even out their chances. The later on you start, the worse your course conditions will be, sometimes with gnarly ruts, holes and bumps." [1]

While yes, a better athlete would start later, and therefore be at a disadvantage, it evens out the field so that they can close the gap in the effects of the course conditions.

[1]: https://qz.com/1202352/a-short-guide-to-understanding-alpine...

Sure, but snow differences aren't determined by programmers trying to make the game more interesting by ensuring different skiiers have different amounts of snow to work with. If e-skiing were to become an Olympic sport you'd expect everyone to start with the same amount of snow.

> If e-skiing were to become an Olympic sport you'd expect everyone to start with the same amount of snow.

Since competitive skiing is based on athleticism in the face of uncertain conditions, that sounds dreadfully boring.

From a consume-on-TV perspective it's the athleticism which makes it compelling, not random misfortunes with the snow conditions.

Appreciate experienced skiiers might see more nuance to how skiiers approach subtle changes to the piste, but still doubt they'd find button clicking in the face of uncertain conditions equally compelling (or even more compelling than watching real skiiers on a suitably large raked and climate-controlled slope)

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