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Comment by corey_moncure | Hacker News Reader

>New Zealand had complained that Canadian staff flew drones over their training sessions before their opening fixture at the Olympics

What's the problem with this? I don't get it. Did the rules say no drones over training sessions or something?

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Using surveillance equipment to gather information on your opponents is certainly at least violating the spirit of the games. As a Canadian I'm glad this team is seeing consequences.

I understand now. It wasn't immediately clear to me from the pronouns that the Canadian team was running drones over someone ELSE's training session.

Among other things, the entire olympic area is a no-fly-zone (for obvious reasons) and they have thus commited a crime under french law. In other articles it mentions that the pilot faces 8 months in prison. Noone wants to set precedence of allowing/enabling national rule braking.

Spying on the competition is unsporting, this isn't something new. Just new tech being used to violate old social norms.

TBH I don't get that either. I mean, wouldn't you want to know how the opponent is going to play? And what if they just send someone to watch?

But hey, I'm probably going to be downvoted for spirit of the games. But to be, wanting to win (as long as not offending the law) is the most important part of the spirit.

Spying on other teams regardless of the technology has long been regarded as unsportsmanlike conduct, across all sports. This is nothing new and if anything your attitude to win using spying is against the norms.

I mean, they do watch replays and do data analysis too, right? Sure there is a difference, but to me, it's not a whole lot of difference.

Edit: I'm sure they don't refrain from watching the opponents playing against other teams too...

It's a difference seeing what lineup they prepare for the match against you and specifically prepare for that, preparing for set pieces they're practicing to use against you, seeing where they're practicing to place their next penalty kick etc. - vs just general prep based on public information.

The difference is that this was during practice sessions.

The "unsportsmanlike" aspects isn't about the difference in intelligence gathered, but avoiding the need for every team to run counter-surveillance operations.

That’s the trouble—it’s zero-sum waste that becomes mandatory if it’s permitted.

Right.

Sports is definitively not war, and not all is fair. Otherwise why ban doping, or disapprove of Tanya Harding getting her competitor kneecapped, etc.

I didn’t downvote you for “spirit of the games” but I did downvote you because you don’t seem to know much about sports. Practices are not always full speed, they don’t necessarily include players playing as opposition and are often times to make small adjustments for the next opponent.

In this case, Canada was spying on New Zealand while they were doing set plays. It’s quite common to make adjustments to set plays to counter something an opponent is particularly good at.

If I watch a game, I can see how that team prepares for another team. If I watch them practice, I can see how they prepare for my team. That gives me time to adjust before the game as opposed to trying to make adjustments from the sidelines. And it gives me and my team a tremendous advantage.

So yes, if you are the kind of person who wants to win at all costs, spying on practices would be smart. I ride or die with your teammates but not with people who do that. Winning is nice, but sports are about being the best not the least ethical.

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