To tell you the truth, I don’t really like watching the Olympics. It’s kinda boring. But hey, I fence, and I get way bored watching fencing.
This article piqued my interest, however: Only Three Golds – U.S. Misfires in Early Days in Athens.
It wasn’t just my patriotic outrage, it was the first sentence: “Told to avoid inflaming anti-American sentiment, U.S. athletes may have toned down the bravado too much in the early days of the Athens Games.”
Ain’t that interesting? Is this true? Or is an excuse? Either way, it disgusts me. Lose to make the rest of the world happy? Intimidation is part of the game, my friends. Even if you don’t think intimidation is all that great, can I appeal to your patriotism? Shouldn’t we try out best?
Something else to ponder: “China lead the medals table with 10 golds.”
So, they put a man in space. They’re in the lead for the medal count. Will they win? If not, they’re going to do a damn good job. Then, they’re hosting the 2008 Olympics. Being the host country naturally means you put more money into sports in order to look good, which will most likely translate to more medals. Could we be looking at China doing the best in 2008?
China is a nation on the rise. And China is not a democracy. That’s why I’m worried.
It’s all symbolic so far… and I know this is a cheap dig… but who hosted the 1936 Olympics? The Nazis.
It reminds me of a comment Lloyd left a while back [I’ll find the entry later]. The 20th century belonged to America. Will the 21st belong to the Chinese?
DAMN RIGHT! GO RED AND YELLOW!!!!! REPRESENT
China isn’t projected to win the medal race in Athens. Not even close. The US is again expected to win (based on all prior records over the last couple of years.) If they do their best in ALL the events they’re in, the highest the Chinese can get is 2nd, overtaking Russia (from the Sydney Olympics). And even that result is highly unlikely. I think it’ll still be US, Russia, China, just like in Sydney.
Here were the top 5 from Sydney 2000:
US, 97 total: 39 Gold 25 Silver 33 Bronze
Russia, 88 total: 32 Gold 28 Silver 28 Bronze
China, 59 total: 28 Gold 16 Silver 15 Bronze
Australia, 58 total: 16 Gold 25 Silver 17 Bronze
Germany, 57 total: 14 Gold 17 Silver 26 Bronze
China will definitely improve on their totals this year, but not outstrip either the US or Russia. All knowledgable athletics publications are projecting that.
Beijing 2008, though, is another story entirely. As host nation, China will be able to put athletes in just about all the events, whether or not their athletes qualify in them. Then, by sheer number/participation, their medal totals are bound to rise. In addition, they’re on a multi-year push to do exactly that: win the total and gold medals race in their own Olympics year.
I still don’t think they might win the medals race then, though. Unless all of a sudden they begin mass producing athletes in sports that they don’t have a long tradition in, beginning with track and field, which yields tons of medals.
They also don’t have demonstrable historical excellence in such domains as rowing, boxing, equestrian, cycling, etc.; I don’t see China winning the medal race in 2008, unless there’s a steep quality dropoff in ALL countries that dominate those other sports. (And how likely is that? Not very.)