I miss being able to watch the Olympics. Much as I hate the usual NBC distractions, would be happy never to see Bob Costas ever again, the competitions themselves are fun, exciting, admirable. Makes me feel like a slug, but I can rise above it, as I could above a high-jump bar set at twelve inches.
Mitt Romney, of course, thinks our medal count proves American exceptionalism, and I suppose it does, the way my removing a gallbladder, including taking an operative X-ray, in twelve minutes (personal best) does. I wonder if he'd keep funding the USOC, and if so, why? I don't have the numbers, but I'm thinking Planned Parenthood does more for the national health, and PBS and NPR more for the general level of education. But still.
I've always puzzled over the nationalistic aspects of the games. Raising the flags, playing the anthems of the winners. It seems to me it's about individual accomplishment, the unimaginable hard work and commitment of athletically gifted people, often overcoming daunting surroundings. And whereas it's obviously true that some countries, like China and breakaways from the former CCCP, commit tons of effort and money to find, support, train, and deify them, to the extent that countries deserve credit, it's sort of the opposite of the Olympic ideal.
Anyway, for better or worse, the USA USA USA won the medal count, if that was the goal. Don't get me wrong: I think it's as cool to see athletes tearing up when the SSB is played as it is annoying to see some acting like they don't care. I rooted for the women's soccer and basketball teams like everyone else. (Sorry to say, I'd not have been crushed if Lebron and Kobe had had their asses handed to them; on the other hand, I like Kevin Durant, even after he left these parts.) But here's another way to look at it: if you count medals against population, other countries have much more to be proud of than we do. Here's the data (the link includes charts for total medals, etc, as well):
85 countries have won medals. 302 gold medals awarded.
Gold medals per million population
Rank Country Gold Silver Bronze Gold/Million 1 Grenada 1 0 0 9.1734 2 Bahamas 1 0 0 3.1627 3 New Zealand 6 2 5 1.3863 4 Jamaica 4 4 4 1.3845 5 Trinidad and Tobago 1 0 3 0.8154 6 Hungary 8 4 5 0.8033 7 Croatia 3 1 2 0.6696 8 Lithuania 2 1 2 0.5673 9 Slovenia 1 1 2 0.5008 10 Great Britain 29 17 19 0.4600 11 Latvia 1 0 1 0.4563 12 Cuba 5 3 6 0.4515 13 Norway 2 1 1 0.4249 14 Kazakhstan 7 1 5 0.3995 15 Czech Republic 4 3 3 0.3930 16 Denmark 2 4 3 0.3608 17 Netherlands 6 6 8 0.3586 18 Australia 7 16 12 0.3180 19 Republic of Korea 13 8 7 0.2661 20 Switzerland 2 2 0 0.2612 21 Georgia 1 3 3 0.2188 22 Ireland 1 1 3 0.2118 23 Azerbaijan 2 2 6 0.2107 24 Belarus 2 5 5 0.2096 25 Russian Federation 24 26 32 0.1738 26 France 11 11 12 0.1676 27 Democratic People's Republic of Korea 4 0 2 0.1627 28 United States of America 46 29 29 0.1466 29 Serbia 1 1 2 0.1374 30 Germany 11 19 14 0.1353 31 Ukraine 6 5 9 0.1338 32 Italy 8 9 11 0.1306 33 Sweden 1 4 3 0.1098 34 Dominican Republic 1 1 0 0.0991 35 Tunisia 1 1 1 0.0932 36 Romania 2 5 2 0.0915 37 Spain 3 10 4 0.0638 38 South Africa 3 2 1 0.0615 39 Japan 7 14 17 0.0550 40 Poland 2 2 6 0.0521 41 Islamic Republic of Iran 4 5 3 0.0507 42 Kenya 2 4 5 0.0465 43 Venezuela 1 0 0 0.0357 44 Uzbekistan 1 0 3 0.0352 45 Ethiopia 3 1 3 0.0320 46 Canada 1 5 12 0.0292 47 People's Republic of China 38 27 23 0.0283 48 Algeria 1 0 0 0.0282 49 Uganda 1 0 0 0.0279 50 Turkey 2 2 1 0.0251 51 Argentina 1 1 2 0.0237 52 Colombia 1 3 4 0.0221 53 Brazil 3 5 9 0.0146 54 Mexico 1 3 3 0.0087
Make of it what you will. I loved watching the whole thing, including the opening and closing, and I'm glad "our" athletes did well, even though I had as much to do with it as I did with the drought devastating our middle parts but John Boehner thinks Obama did.
