Using the Rules

Taleena posts about a Connecticut school district that has instituted a rule that no high school football team shall win a game by more than 50 points. In a comment to that post I reminded her of Torvill and Dean and their run-ins with the ISC over their interpretations of the rules.

I found this on Wikipedia:

Getting around Olympic rules

Ravel's original Boléro composition is over 17 minutes long. Olympics rules clearly state that the free dance must be four minutes long (plus or minus 10 seconds). Torvill and Dean went to a music arranger to condense Boléro down to a "skatable" version. However, they were told that the minimum time that Boléro could be condensed down to was 4 minutes 28 seconds. This is still 18 seconds in excess of the Olympics rules. Torvill and Dean reviewed the Olympic rule book and found that it stated that actual timing of a skating routine began when the skaters started skating. Therefore they could arguably use Boléro if they did not place their skates' blades to ice for the first 18 seconds. They timed the performance so that when Jayne first places a blade on the ice, they would have the maximum skating time remaining. In their medal-winning Boléro routine, Torvill & Dean move their bodies to the music for 18 seconds before they began skating.

Barracks lawyers the lot of them! But man, when I watched that routine my jaw was on the floor.