Olympics games and boardgame parallels

Boardgames
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I’m watching this Olympic cycling race (a long road race). And it seems like the race has hall marks of what is a semi co op - people working together knowing there will only be one winner.

In this context a chasing group have to work together such that they might have a chance of catching the leaders with enough energy to actually attack.

It’s interesting because this is compelling.

I think generally semi co-ops are broadly unflavoured over straight co ops or straight competitive. So I wonder if stuff from this could improve semi co op as a thing.

  1. the concept of a semi co-op from the outset should be binned off. What makes this work in the bike race is that the the semi co-op thing happens as an emergency act that forms on an ad hoc basis.

  2. at any point people can and will expect to serve their own interest but there’s a fair bit of communications before hand.

  3. there was a group within the lot (the peloton) who were happy with not winning and carrying each other to some lesser achievement.

  4. there are real stakes.

Anyone else noticed any Olympic stuff with cool game aspects or strategy?

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On a related note, any else remember Bruce Jenner’s Decathlon from the late 70s or early 80s? Lots of dice chucking for most events but a dexterity element in the throwing events. Pretty fun when I was a child.

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