I’m watching and enjoying the Olympics, as always (at least, when I can find competition, rather than filler, being broadcast). But looking back on the Olympic competitions I remember from when I was younger, I think I’m seeing a change.

Sports which were (at least, to my memory) almost entirely judged artistic competitions, such as the various ice dancing events (or the gymnastics and equestrian events of summer), now seem to have more and more mathematically required elements in the scores. Indeed, NBC shows a box in the top left corner of “this element, if completed correctly, adds this many points,” and it’s measured down to hundredths. And that number updates in seeming real-time as the competitors are performing.

And sports which (again, I think I remember this correctly) were entirely numerical measurements not open to interpretation, such as ski jumping (which I thought was “how far down the slope did the competitor fly, and was the competitor able to land on the skis, or was it a wipe-out?”) now has a judged component: “Oops, he kind of wobbled a bit when he landed, and his feet were too close together” or something like that.

I’m still amazed that timed events like luge are measured down to thousandths of a second, and that the commentators think we can see any real difference between competitors when the final standings, after four 53-second runs, have six athletes separated by less than two seconds.

But are we seeing a blending of judged events and those measuring absolute values? How long before there’s an artistic component figured into curling or ice hockey?