Dark side of the medal count.
 

Yes, I know, this isn't original. But I heard a report today on NPR about China's conserted effort to imporve its medal count the past four years. They delivered the report without moral judgment.

I remember during the cold war how the USSR used to kick ass in the medal count. I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me if Nazi Germany had a haul in 1936.

Why do the totalitarian states think it's some sign of their superiority to win the medal count? I don't. I'm not impressed, China. I don't care. This is old and trite.

The medals and medal ceremonies should be to celebrate the individual athletes, not to foment nationalism or give the masses a jolt of self confidence. It's stupid. I hate the extent the USA buys into this silly contest. National affiliation should be disclosed as a footnote.

funny that USA is doing so well in the team sports, and so poorly (relatively to normal) in individual track and field.

USA should be the land of the individual, and teams shunned. Teams are for commies.

I guess the reds won, we really are the evil empire commies now.

Are you drunk today? You are all over the map.

1936 not 1945. what's wrong with me today.

The funny thing is that China's project 119 has not worked. They have been collecting their medals in sports where they are traditionally very strong. But the concerted effort to gain more medals in swimming, rowing, track and field does not seemed to have worked per a report I heard on NPR today. Their medal count in those sports is actually lower this games than in the last Olympics. Imagine if they ever make the progress they've committed to make with project 119, they'll destroy everybody.

http://www.nysun.com/sports/project-...ld-lead/84420/

I bet all the Chinese are on performance enhancing drugs. The USSR and East Germans were. They had no scruples. How could you after enslaving, imprisoning and murdering so many millions of people? When I was a kid my dad used to tell me how the authorities woud take these athletes from their parents when they were kids and turn them into robots. They'd slit their parents' throats if Big Brother told them to. Okay, he was just a Mormon guy from Sandy but he also told me he bet those brawny East German women were all on "male hormone drugs" and he was right.

I'm sorry if this sounds like the kind of nasty generalization I decry. But I'm prejudiced against totalitarianism.

Who cares. Blah blah blah. It's a fool's errand. Let them have them.

Well it's already well publicized that the gymnasts are taken from their homes at age 3 or 4 and train for the Olympics non-stop until they are "16".

Go to the medal tracker and add up the medals from all of the nations that were part of the Soviet Union; they would still be kicking butt. (I realize this is a little misleading, but it is interesting to do.)

What is a bit disconcerting is how we've fallen in some traditional sports for us.

In Track, we've gone totally to the toilet. It's part because our students are lazy.

And our school systems are behind in physical education.

And although the USSR kicked our asses routinely due to centralized sports systems, their economies sucked. Today not only are traditional aspects of society and sport faltering but our economy is becoming second rate, and our infrastructure is far behind China's, if you listen to Obama. Such a statement makes me believe he's never been there but what's politics without a lot of hyperbole.

We suck in track, boxing, sailing, and most individual sports outside of swimming.

Britain devoted lots of money to track cycling and look at the results. Australia, a tiny populace, comparatively kicks our butts. There is a malaise across the board here.