SPORTSFILTER: Has a thread on subjectivity in sports, and a link to a Times article on the same subject. Vis-a-vis my own thoughts on the subject, I have to disagree with these comments that the more objective you get, the truer a sport is; I think they're all sports, ranging from man or woman versus nature to man in collaboration with man or woman to produce a neat, nature-defying effect --in an athletic way, of course. Or everything ESPN covers plus pro wrestling is a sport. Take your pick.

The Times writer says this, which I found odd:

Boxing might seem to be the least subjective sport of them all — after all, you don’t worry about marks for artistic impression when your opponent is lying concussed at your feet. But what about Lennox Lewis? He was given a draw — which meant that he failed to become world champion — after outboxing Evander Holyfield over 12 rounds.

I don't think anyone anyone has ever thought boxing is an objective sport, because it's so obviously manipulable in a pro-wrestling way. Like I said, the closest thing to perfectly objective sports is something like billiards or bowling, things where it's clear to everybody, athlete and audience, what victory constitutes, and there is no third person --the referee-- to decide what has atually happened. So I guess for me objectivity is inversely related to the influence an official, referee or promoter has on the contest under discussion.