“Well, allow me to play devils advocate. We have a larger population than most countries in the world, so it follows somewhat at least, that we’d have better odds to produce great athletes. Just look at the size of the Olympic teams in Rio compared to our contingent.”
OK. I looked.
China has a population four plus times that of the USA - and their athletes are virtually professionals. I.e. they do not have other jobs, they work fulltime trying to show the world how glorious Communist China is.
They have 56 medals, or to make it fair 13 if you divide their population by four.
Correct, they are the exception to the rule. But how many professional Chinese athletes do you see in the major sports of the world?
NFL
NBA
MLB
NHL
Soccer
Yao Ming. Next?
And most of those tend to be in the "Synchronized Sports" or Diving or Ping Pong.
How many Track and Field medals has China ever won?