So does this mean that the EU will have to field one team instead of every country getting their own team?
Or does this mean that we get a team from each of the 50 states?
If the best.. I dunno.. synchronized divers.. are from germany, france, and britain. Does that mean only the best diver gets to go under the EU flag and the rest stay home? (how many divers can each country enter anyway?)
Will the EU have a single basketball team? One chance at glory rather than 10?
If the EU is going to be counted as one country, they can only send as many people as a single country can.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Our beating the pants off the rest of the world must have really stung. They can spin it however they want. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Why wouldn't the richest country on earth win the most medals? It would be weird if another country won more medals than America, because I'm not sure it's happened in my lifetime (or at least the portion of my lifetime that I remember clearly).
I think he's just trying to play up his plan for a wholly unified EU, not whining about America winning lots of medals.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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The US hasn't always won the most medals. The USSR beat us relatively recently in Olympic history and China is supposed to contend in Beijing. They do have 5 times as many people and bonus qualifying because they're the host.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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So what if they do run under an EU flag as well as one for each separate country? This was the first olympics in a good, long while where Americans didn't come prancing out with the typical "we're number one!" jibberish in everyone's face. Even then, the American bias was still palpable in the coverage. We are the richest and strongest nation, so why wouldn't other nations be vying for ways to top us?
Posts: 1170 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Right, but the USSR fell apart before I was old enough to pay attention to the Olympics. Since the US is the world's sole superpower and largest economy by FAR (especially if you consider it on a per capita basis against, say, China), it's perfectly reasonable to assume that America would win the most medals at these Olympics.
It's not like the guy in Pix's article is talking about how the EU beat those rotten Americans -- he's talking about his (unpopular) plan for full EU unification. Really, that article has pretty much nothing to do with America.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Actually, I don't think we ever win the medal count in the winter olympics. just the summer ones. And i heard somewhere (no link) that this was the 3rd summer we'd won in a row. So 12 years ago someone else got the most medals.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote: Why wouldn't the richest country on earth win the most medals?
Maybe we're richest for the same reason we won the most medals.
Seriously, I don't really know that the argument that wealth produces the best athletes is really logical. Drive, determination, physical ability--these things aren't a factor of wealth. Also, if you look at the number of medals as a factor of wealth, then the EU would have far fewer medals and America far more, wouldn't they?
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In fact, just looking at the medal count, your argument seems pretty obviously untrue. I mean, Russia has an economy the size of Portugal's....
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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In America, wealth does matter. It's pretty hard to produce a world-class gymnast unless her parents have a lot of money. No one trains athletes for free.
Now, in other areas, like Romania, you don't have to have a lot of money, the state just comes and takes your kid.
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I think it has more to do with population than wealth. If you're picking the best athlete out of 1000 instead of 100, you're probably going to get a better athlete.
Not that money doesn't help.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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When you consider that 75% if Canadian athletes live below the poverty line then yes, the amount of funding you give an athlete can make a difference. If you have to worry about, I don't know, how am I going to pay for dinner? You have a lot less time to run down a track.
Not that money is everything, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking that only drive and desire to win make a difference. Countries that sink a lot of money into a sport tend to do really well in that sport (Cubans and boxing, Kenyans and distance running, Romanians and gymnastics, etc) over many years. The fact that it isn't the same athlete winning over those years seems to indicate that money, coaching, facilites, etc. may have a lot to do with it.
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If it was a matter of population, and not wealth, Brazil would have won a lot more medals instead of ...10 (gold+silver+bronze).
Posts: 1785 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Give me a break. The "medals count by country" is one of the worst aspects of media jingoism in International Olympics coverage.
An Australian ain't gonna swim faster cuz IanThorpe wins a medal. An American ain't gonna run faster because JeremyWariner won the 400metre. A Turk ain't gonna be stronger cuz NurcanTaylan lifted more weight than any other woman.
What? Do you think that hurdlers are gonna decide that emigrating into the DominicanRepublic is a good idea cuz FelixSanchez won the 400metre? You gonna move to Iran cuz HosseinRezazadeh lifted more weight than any other competitor? Do you think that the BerlinWall and the border no man zones were erected to keep WestGermans from fleeing into EastGermany cuz they won more medals?
Unless we placed bets with the bookies, "we" didn't win anything. What we got was the pleasure of watching superbly conditioned&trained individuals and teams excel at their sport.
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And there's well documented evidence that seeing success inspires young people to join the sport (which, I'm sure, helps in the "traditional dominance" that many countries show in different sports). For us fatty western countries, inspiring more kids to get off the couch is the most important aspect of the Olympics Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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"Informally" like heck. Nations can't get out of the ColdWar mindset of officially bragging about "their" victories. Doesn't mean we have to be the sheep following their misdirection.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Its not the economy, its the money spent on training. That's why communist nations do so well. The USSR, China, and Cuba all pore money into athletics to try to prove that they are the best. Russia has continued that even after the breakup but that is the issue. Some events don't require expensive training, like running, so nations like Kenya and Ethiopia can still do well in those. Population is important, because no matter how well the Bahamas does they will never get more medals than the Americans. However, if the population isn't trained they won't do well, otherwise India would have gotten more than 1 medal.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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American girls were inspired to "really get into" gymnastics by OlgaKorbut and NadiaComaneci; and the first is Russian and the latter is Romanian.
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It isn't often that I agree wholehearted with aspectre, but I do here. There are many things that really cheapen the Olympics, from it's Social Darwinist beginnings to the drug taking to the coporations all over the place, but for me, one of the worst is the whole medal count thing.
If the Chinese take the most medals in 2008, it's not going to mean that they are a better country. I watch the Olympics for the beauty and majesty of athletes (especially women's beach volleyball, yowzah!) at their best, not so I can think that my country's penis is bigger than any others.
America does do better because of our environment. If you take out the Chinese, probably around half the athletes at the Games train in America. People who are full American citizens compete for other countries. And you know what, if they win, it doesn't diminish America at all. I'm glad that my country allows people who live and work and train here to compete for other countries. That's an amazing thing in itself, and something, I think, to be prouder of than winning the most medals.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Money matters in that some places are great to train at, like America.
But unlike a lot of other countries, most of our athletes are still working for a living. They get some benefits, like great facilities, but the competition here is fierce to get into the facilities as well.
Other countries sponsor their atheletes...as a matter of fact, being an Olympic athlete in the USSR was one of the best jobs (for pay AND perks) in the whole country! Romania treats their gymnasts like chattel, but gymnastics is ALL they do, year round.
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It's a combination of money, population, opportunity (not everyone in every country with huge populations has the chance to get into a sport that they could potentially excel at- some countries conduct searches among the poor- others don't.) but it's also culture, and what you hear about a lot in a country's media.
The only time I hear about some sports (table tennis, for example) is during the Olympics, once every four years. In other countries, I'm presuming, table tennis has a higher profile. A country's wins in a certain sport help raise the profile of that sport, and giving it more coverage, causing more people from that country to want to try it, causing more people from that country to become good at it, causing a country to put more money into that particular sport, more people to teach it, and more children to have a chance to enter it, thus increasing the likelyhood of a second medal.
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The US does not "allow" American citizens to compete for other countries. The IOC rules allow people who are born in another country to say, American parents, who live all of their lives in the US, to compete for the nation where they were born. Many countries allow dual citizenship, thus allowing "Greek-Americans", "Russian-Americans", "Italian-Americans". etc... to compete for other nations. The US does NOT allow this. The only way you can compete for the US is to be born here ... or to become a naturalized citizen . An athlete cannot compete for the US if they are in the process of attaining citizenship... hence the 1994 US pairs skating champions Renee Roca (American) and Gorsha Sur (Russian, filed for citizenship, taken classes, and exam scheduled) were not sent to the Olympics. (Also their "friends" and competitors and 2nd place team at Nationals petitioned congress to not allow Gorsha Sur "early citizenship" thus preventing them from competing internationally for the US ) Winter Olympic history, but still relevant. Many countries considered to be "Eastern Block" back in the day, did not send the best of amateur athletes to compete.. their athletes were professionals.. that's all they did, and they got room , board, cars, and money to do so and to win. Much different from here where athletes have to work at a job and work out... and many also have to attend classes as they are in college through scholarships.
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I agree with Teshi, and some sports come to the Olympics after many years of petitioning the IOC such as the exhibition sport of Billiards at the Athens Olympics. Of course another sport that wasn't so popular had to be bumped in order for that to occur. (it bumped individual synchronized swimming....is that even possible? how can u be synchronized with someone if you are the only person in the pool?) They had some weird underwater-polo-like-table tennis-y exhibition sport in Sydney it was like waterpolo...under water with mini ping pong paddles. No wonder it didn't last, but it had To be popular somewhere...and don't even ask about the winter sport of curling....who calls sweeping a sport? Posts: 325 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Curling is the second most popular sport in Canada! It takes a huge amount of practice to be good at and there's a whole hell of a lot of strategy involved. And, might I add, that sweeping is a lot more work than you think.
Disparaging curling. Honestly, what is this world coming to?
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I think it had to do with Greece having different qualification requirements than other countries. The Americans were of Greek descent within some arbitrary number of generations, so Greece let 'em in.
quote:Unless we placed bets with the bookies, "we" didn't win anything. What we got was the pleasure of watching superbly conditioned&trained individuals and teams excel at their sport.
Looks like my day to be an aspectre-head.
*admiring
And a bit of headding to Mr. Squicky, too. Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:It should be noted that the American bias was palpable in the American coverage.
Not every country uses the same coverage.
Right on. It was go aussie go in all the coverage here - if an Australian wasn't in the final then it hardly ever got repeated. But when an Australian won gold, the repeats were on every hour. And then montages of teary athletes all set to inspirational music.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote: Right on. It was go aussie go in all the coverage here - if an Australian wasn't in the final then it hardly ever got repeated. But when an Australian won gold, the repeats were on every hour. And then montages of teary athletes all set to inspirational music.
Canadian coverage isn't quite that gooey, but it is very... optimistic. Each loss is a triumph of some kind, whether it be a Canadian record, or the highest placing of a Canadian in a certain sport. Because there were fewer atheletes in the finals there were lots of things broadcast that didn't have Canadians in. They're still rooting for Canada but not to the exclusion of the others, mostly because it was more likely the winners were not Canadian.
I actually really liked the balance of coverage here.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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) Winter Olympic history, but still relevant. ![[Hat]](graemlins/hat.gif)
. I cheered for Argentina just for that . I cheered for Ian Thorpe because i respect his work ethic and what he does for children in Australia... not to mention he's a cutie! ![[Blushing]](graemlins/blushing.gif)
love ya Kwea!
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