Katrina Witt
Posted on 08/22/2008 10:06:32 PM PDT by aclusux.com
BEIJING – Across the Chinese media, the story has hit saturation coverage. China, once mocked as “the weaklings of Asia,” is going to win what it calls the total medal count for the Beijing Games.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
In the U.S., all medals are counted, so the Americans still hold a lead (102-89 after Friday’s competition) by that standard. The U.S. is trying to retain the total medal supremacy (by its count) it’s held since boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The U.S. has won the most golds since 1996.
In China, the accounting differences don’t matter. By the Chinese’s standard, this is over. And that’s the only standard. They talk about China’s victory all day on state-run television. Stories are all over the nation’s government-controlled major newspapers.
“China’s Gold Boom!” screamed one show on CCTV.
The difficult thing for the Americans to stomach is the situation is unlikely to change in future Games. This isn’t a one-time surge by a host nation. This isn’t even a run of great success.
China’s system of athletics places value on the medal count above all – as opposed to professional success or athlete choice. Whether the U.S. holds on this time or not, eventually China’s system, coupled with its 1.3 billion people, should be unstoppable. ADVERTISEMENT
The U.S. can’t and, despite USOC claims, probably won’t want to compete in the same manner.
“China has been systematically targeting every single available medal, and we’re going to have to do that in the future,” the USOC’s Peter Ueberroth said. “It’s going to be very difficult (to dislodge China). The resources that they put toward their Olympic team and the population base and the dedication is fantastic.”
The proof of America’s challenge was in successful American athletes all over Beijing the last two days.
There was Hope Solo as she climbed a gold medal stand for women’s soccer, Tayshaun Prince as he grabbed a rebound in a men’s basketball semifinal victory over Argentina, and Jennie Finch as she teared up at winning just silver in what is expected to be the last softball competition. All are world-class athletes and all helped deliver a medal. If the goal is the medal count, though, none of the three may have maximized their ability.
If they had competed in individual sports where they could’ve racked up multiple medals, rather than be part of a team that won just one, those three could have been more valuable by medal count standards.
In China, they wouldn’t have had a choice. A sports star, like the property a house is built on, is owned by the government. The pursuit of sport is for national pride. The motivation is societal, as opposed to capitalistic in the United States.
China selects athletes at young ages and pushes them into sports in which their expected body types might thrive. In the U.S., an athlete is allowed to follow his own path to success or failure.
The results are dramatic. In an effort to bolster its Olympic standing – the total medal count – China embarked on a program in which it placed particular emphasis in competitions that awarded many medals and where world competition wasn’t particularly robust. As recently as 1988, China won just five golds.
In these Games, it has been powered by eight golds in weightlifting, seven in diving and five in shooting. While the Chinese have won their share of heavily contested competitions, such as women’s gymnastics, the focus on more obscure sports has paid dividends.
China doesn’t apologize for it. Nor should it. It has its goal and the perfect plan to attain it.
In the U.S., the athlete’s goal is most often himself. The two sports that siphon off the most male athletes are football and basketball. Combined, they yield just a single medal.
Would Jake Long be a great hammer thrower and thus valuable to the USOC? Considering his powerful 6-foot-7, 315-pound frame, long arms and quick feet, it stands to reason yes. Long, though, was the first overall pick of the NFL draft and signed a contract worth $57 million to block for the Miami Dolphins.
No one in their right mind in the States would expect him to do anything else.
In men’s basketball, where the U.S. is favored to win gold, imagine the value the players would have if they broke off into individual pursuits. LeBron James as a heavyweight boxer? Prince and his 6-8 height and 7-2 wing span as a swimmer? Michael Redd as a dead-eye shooter (rifle, not jump)?
If they were Chinese, they might produce many medals rather than a combined one.
While some Chinese athletes make considerable money in endorsements and performance contracts – hurdler Liu Xiang’s likeness is everywhere here – the lack of professional sports opportunities create a mindset foreign to America and conducive to Olympic glory.
Then there are Solo and Finch, two high-profile female athletes. The U.S. is particularly strong in women’s sports, although much of it is in team competition. Just on Thursday here, American teams in beach volleyball and soccer all won gold. Softball won silver, and basketball and indoor volleyball each advanced to gold-medal games.
That’s an enormous amount of gifted athletes producing just five potential medals. And softball is slated for elimination from play after these Olympics.
Team sports, thanks to Title IX legislation from the early 1970s, have been a powerful and positive force in the lives of American girls, whether they reach this level or not. It’s a system that remains the right one for the United States and through the years has produced 2,200 total medals (over 900 of them gold), more than twice any other nation.
China is coming, though. America will have to accept that what’s best for it may not be best for nationalistic headlines or prideful medal counts.
Soon enough, the Chinese winning the medal count won’t be a question of accounting or even such big news.
China cheats. We knew the same thing about the former Eastern Bloc countries during the Cold War.
It sucks to not have the most golds, but we have the most total medals and we did it the right way.
We didn’t have underage gymnasts.
We didn’t take children away at the age of 2 from their parents for the rest of their childhood.
We didn’t have any government sponsored doping program (no proof of China doing this yet, but any takers that its happening?) — we just have private individuals do this
Our Medal haul wasn’t in fake sports like Badminton and Table Tennis, lol.
US........Medals..Points
Gold.........31.......93
Silver........36.......72
Bronze......35.......35
TOTALS..102.....200
CHINA...Medals..Points
Gold..........47......141
Silver.........17......34
Bronze......25.......25
TOTALS..89......200
No offense, but who loses sleep over the fact that we may or may not end up with the most medals? Big fricking deal. We get a ton of medals, whether we get ‘the most’ or not.
But when the games are over, they still live in a nation without basic freedoms.
And China doesn’t have an athlete that totally dominated the Games like Michael Phelps did or a team of basketball players that includes members more popular than Yao Ming....
Wrong! The IOC is a communist mouthpiece, just like the UN is. Another bunch of anti-American haters!
Everyone watching the Olympics or following it on the news is seeing first hand what a corrupt system the Olympics has become.
And even in the face of Chinese cheating, murdering Americans in the streets, corrupt judges and filthy air, water, etc., American athletes are representing our country with honor and pride!
Given their history of abusing and killing innocent human beings THE GAMES SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I smell the stench of wayward capitalists.
Communism is great—just ask a modern democrat.
And we aren’t cheating! We didn’t buy off the judges! Our government isn’t raising little robot athletes from birth!
We also don’t fake fireworks!
And what’s with all the rain?? I thought China was able to control the weather?
;^)
The medal count per capita should count more than aggregate totals. Granted, Slovenia will win out, but so what?
Per Capita totals
1. Slovenia 2.5 medals/million population
2. New Zealand 2.15
3. Jamaica 1.78
4. Australia 1.69
Take away all of China’s medals that they won in a competition that requires judges, and they have what... ?
I remember the East German women. They all looked like men, because the communist government forcefed them steroids.
They are all dying or sick now.
The priority of the East Germans was to win medals. The Chinese seem to be going the same way. I would be totally amazed to find out if the Chinese weren’t cheating in a million ways, creating their little automatons.
The Chinese could win a thousand medals. I still don’t have any respect for them.
In my opinion, the country that SHOULD be beating its chest is Jamaica. Per capita, it might have the best medal record, and even if not, for a tiny “yah mon” country, it has kicked ass.
I'd be shocked if they weren't.
Yep, the roided-up East German women used to pile up medals in far greater numbers than did their men. And though I haven't seen the figures, it seems the Chinese women have won at least 70% of their country's medals.
Much of the gap has to do with the abysmal performance of the US track and field team this year. They have COMPLETELY underachieved, and seem remarkably unmotivated. The entire program needs to be overhauled.
The U.S. did sweep the men’s 400m, though. ...and I suspect they’ll win gold in tomorrow’s 4 x 400m relay. But you’re right, overall the U.S. track team turned in a dismal performance.
The only sport in which we did worse was boxing. NEVER have I seen a more pathetic U.S. boxing team.
China spent roughly 40 billion on the games.... so they spent about 600 million for each gold medal? Ouch!
While becoming a top-flight athlete brought great fame, it was also a short-lived thing because most athletic careers were over by the early 1920's even with illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Interestingly, during the Soviet era among the most privileged people that could have a long career staying famous were top-notch ballet dancers, just as long as you didn't belong to the "wrong" nationality (as legendary ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, who is descended from Jewish ancestors, found out right up to the end of the Soviet era). A famous ballerina like Ekaterina Maximova (she was among the best-known ballerinas of the Bolshoi Theatre from the early 1960's to 1980) often lived in big apartments in Moscow, traveled around in chauffeured limousines and even had a dacha (secondary house) to live in! Few Russian athletes during the Soviet era ever lived like that, that's to be sure. Given that type of privilege, small wonder why there was a HUGE waiting list to get into the Vaganova Academy in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) or the Moscow Choreographic Institute, because graduates of these two schools who were good became the closest thing to a celebrity in Soviet times.
Indeed, in 2008 if you're a really good Russian ballet dancer you can really earn serious money as a "guest artist" with ballet companies in western Europe or the USA. (I've read that Svetlana Zakharova or Diana Vishneva, both of which are Vaganova Academy graduates, earn six-figure appearance fees as guest artists for another ballet company.)
Then we'll see how 'vaunted' their system is.
I so agree. who cares? besides who wants to worry about some of the weirder medal events. Rhythmic gymnastics? Badmiton? come on.
Here’s how the Bejing Games will be remembered by the world:
1. Michael Phelps
2. Bolt Bolt Bolt
3. Fake Fireworks
4. Lipsinking children
5. The Chinese are Cheaters
6. Bejing looks pretty smoggy...remind me not to visit.
Chinese Medals
Badminton - 3 Gold, 2 Silver, 3 Bronze
Judo - 3 Gold, 1 Bronze
Table Tennis - 3 Gold, 1 Silver, 1 Bronze
Shooting - 5 Gold, 2 Silver, 1 Bronze
These aren’t even sports people. They are summer camp activities.
It’s also amazing how China, a country with commie-operated dope testing has 8 Gold medals.. EIGHT.. in Weightlifting.
These people are a disgrace to the human race.
Most maybe, but not Katerina Witt the figureskater. Remember her in the movie Ronin?
actually, no. what part did she play?
You’re comparing judo to badminton?
Put on your gi, meet me at the dojo in 5; it will only take 2 minutes of knock-down randori to instruct you on which is the sport and which is the ‘summer camp activity’.
It was a bit of a stretch, but she played the Russian Iceskater, who was threatened with assassination while skating at an Ice Show.
Katrina Witt
ronin? the one with deniro? i dont remember any russian ice skater. it was some irish babe trying to steal some suitcase nuke in france.
Vincent and Sam, considering their options, discover that the case is identical to one used by figure skaters. Intelligence gleaned from Jean-Pierre’s contacts also suggest the Russians are involved with figure skater Natacha Kirilova (Katarina Witt), the protégé of Mikhi, who is performing a show at the local arena that night.
This poor girl was so messed up from the steroids she was fed from the time she was a child that she ended up getting a sex change.
I’ve also noticed that communists only do well in longstanding, traditional sports. It takes them time to get a program going, find their child athletes, and start a bureaucracy for it.
I’ve always noticed the Americans do well in the up and coming sports. Sort of a distillation of the systems in a bottle.
The American system is flexible and market controlled. The Chinese is a gigantic robotron.
Really, the medal count shouldn’t worry Americans for the future Olympics as much as the article states. The Americans have actually had a moderately bad Games, with numerous gaffes, drops, surprise losses, injuries, “surprising scoring”, etc. The Chinese lost one medal with Liu Xiang’s injury... and not much else went unexpectedly. With the home field advantage addind 10-15 medals, things should be back to “normal” in London in 2012.
Second place Russia has 1204 total medals. Third place Britain has 689.
15th place China has 319.
Team sports should be awarded multiple medals, in numbers each to the number of starting positions in the sport.
So Basketball should be worth 5 medals, Soccer 11, Volleyball 6 and so forth.
In the twelve TEAM sports - basketball (M/W), baseball, softball, field hockey (M/W), volleyball (M/W), water polo (M/W), and soccer (M/W) - China has one silver (field hockey), and the USA has 9 medals: 3 - 5 - 1 (making the wild leap that we'll take the basketball gold)
In individual sports (including those that have multiple members acting in exact concert, like 4-person rowing, etc), where judging is not a major factor, and there are no weight classes, China so far has a respectable 42 medals (16-12-13)... but the USA has a dominant 81 (28-26-27), despite the home-field advantage for the Chinese.
In the weight-classed events (Judo, TaeKwonDo, boxing, wrestling) with judging involved (and each has had controversy this Olympics), the US has 6 medals (1-1-6), and China has 10 medals (10-2-2)
Note: Weightlifting has weight classes and judging, but no controversy, since the judging is rarely contested or blatantly off... and there the Chinese have kicked our tails, with 9 medals to none... 8 gold and one silver. However, with 1 billion people under 140 lbs, to America's 100 million (mostly women), they've got a comparable numerical advantage.
In the five judged categories (gymnastics, diving, equestrian, synchronized swimming, and trampoline), China has 29 medals (18-2-9), to the America's 11 (2-7-2). Once the home-field advantage is removed in London... and it can be safely said that there have been "surprising scoring choices" in those events... then that gap should close considerably.
Did you see the blurb where the Chinese gold-medalist in ping-pong lamented that she gave up so much to be an Olympian, and got so little, that if she had to do it all over again, she’d prefer to not be an athlete? That pretty clearly demonstrates the difference between a system that allows people to pursure their dreams and abilities as they wish (if they can afford to do so)... and a system that scours the landscape for the best potential, plucks them from their families and schools, pays for all their training and living expenses, and drops them like a bad habit once they’ve passed their prime. I wonder how many former Chinese medalists are living on a teacher’s wages (about $500/mo) nowadays.
That's why I mentioned the ballet dancer example in my earlier post--a top-notch ballet dancer that graduated out of the Vaganova Academy or the Moscow Choreographic Institute will likely end up at the Kirov (now Mariinsky) or Bolshoi ballet troupes, quickly rise up in fame for a career that could last well over a decade (sometimes as much as 30 years!), and then become a ballet coach or ballet instructor in their senior years. Indeed, Ulyana Lopatkina, perhaps the most famous ballerina in Russia today, was coached for over a decade by Natalia Dundinskaya, a famous ballerina in the 1930's and 1940's who became the lead instructor at the Vaganova Academy until Dundinskaya retired from teaching in 1997 and continued to coach the best ballerinas until her passing in 2003.
Indeed, unless you're an athlete that could have a long career, it was in the end actually not a good thing to go into in the Communist world. Very few Communist-era athletes actually had a long, successful career, if I remember correctly.
All Time Track and Field medals...
#1 USA 713 (307-225-181)
#2 USSR 214 (71-66-77)
...China 13 (5-3-5)
By George, you’ve got it! She was certainly cute.
Well if we ever get an honest investigation into the underage Chinese gymnast debacle, the host nation’s tally is going to dip a bit.
Unfortunately that is a big IF, as so far everything seems to go back to “well, their passports say they’re 16, good enough for us!”, forged by the government itself.
Letting evidence form China be the final arbiter in this would’ve been like having Al Gore certify his own Florida recount.
In the end, the American way, to count ALL the medals won will always win out. China is just doing what a communist country does, cheat.
I don't think too many in the USA care with this Olympics stature.
Be thankful the summer games will go in 2012 to London and there will be a little sanity.
Not suprised China has experienced “getting too big for their britches” egos over their gold medals win.
Jamaica has done itselfs proud.
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