"WE" won. Who´s "WE"? Athletes who have the US passport, right. Not you, not your family, and probably none of your friends. The US has the largest delegation, and considering this, the performance was rather bad, compared to other nations (especially the Chinese). And who´s the best? I hope you agree with me that it´s the individual athlete who won - and those were mostly NOT Americans, even if the US team got most gold medals (but not many more than the Chinese).
You speak of "quality of man". This is old, some Germans tried it before and called it Aryan. Sorry pal, but the idea of a better race is out-dated... there is no better race, there´s just the better individual.
Actually, I was on track for the 1996 Olympics before getting injured, and I took a gold medal winner to her HS prom, but let's not go there.
You miss the point about Americans, ignoring for this argument Native Americans, there is no American ethnicity. We are a nation of immigrants, and people who come here become Americans when they take the oath of citizenship. Albert Einstein was an American. I am speaking out of neither patriotism nor nationalism. And athletics are but a small part of it. The facts speak for themselves. Since America's emergence as a world power in the mid 19th century, Americans have been responsible for most of the technical and scientific advancements this world has seen.
Oh, and by the way, I have great respect for the German people but when you say "Sure you kicked our asses in the 1940's, but we had Russia and the UK to deal with," you are ignoring the fact that the United States was fighting a whole other war on the other side of the glob simultaneously.
Michael, you need to understand one thing about American Athletes. Unlike the rest of the world, our athletes are not supported by Governmebnt Money. All of it's support comes from private donations. Not a single dollar of tax payer's money is expended on that cause.
But, many athletes from other countries who medalled, in fact, do live here in the US, even though they still compete for their home countries. That says it all about the USA.