Posted on 08/12/2012 6:23:58 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The 2012 London Olympic Games have officially come to a close and, once again, the U.S. sits atop the medal count.
In Beijing they did the same thing, but the host nation China made it interesting. America topped the Chinese by 10 in the overall medal count, but China earned 15 more gold medals than America—China had 51 and the U.S. had 36.
However, in London, the U.S. reemerged as the dominant athletic country.
The United States earned 104 medals, 15 more than any other country—China was second with 87. Plus, the Americans took back their lead in golds, winning 46 of those, eight more than the second ranked Chinese.
Team USA did this by winning medals in a mix of its traditional strengths and by winning surprising medals in lesser-known events.
The U.S. got its medal total kick started with a predictably strong performance in the pool.
Swimmers like Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte and Missy Franklin all earned multiple medals. Plus, fresh faces emerged from the water such as 100-meter freestyle winner Nathan Adrian and 15-year-old Katie Ledecky, who earned gold in the 800-meter free.
America also continued its superiority on the track.
Allyson Felix won three gold medals, Sanya Richards-Ross finally captured her gold in the 400-meters and Ashton Eaton won the decathlon.
In total the Americans won 29 medals on the track, only one short of their lofty pre-London goal of 30. But as Scott Blackmon of the U.S. Olympic Committee told the AP, nobody’s going home disappointed.
America also took home gold in men’s and women’s basketball, took gold and silver in women’s beach volleyball and the U.S. women's soccer team grabbed the nation’s attention with its thrilling gold medal run.
However, it wasn't just about the big sports, plenty of Americans were successful in the smaller sports.
David Boudia upset the favored Chinese divers to take gold in the men's 10-meter platform. Kayla Harrison took home America's first ever gold in Judo. Jake Varner and Jordan Burroughs both took home the gold in wrestling for the U.S. over the last few days of competition.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of athletes contributed to America's outstanding medal haul, whether they competed as a team or individually.
One thing is for sure, though. There is no question about America's standing as the foremost country at the Olympics.
China put that status into question in 2008, but this time around, the U.S. showed that it was up to the challenge.
Now, it's on to Rio. And once again, the U.S. will do its best to hold off a number of hard-charging nations that could outshine America's medal glory.
Only four more years, till we get to see.
Guess they’ll have to add more categories for Table Tennis and Badminton.
Dedication and hard work.
I saw where the IOC keeps the samples for 10 years, and can retest the samples at anytime, as new tests become available.
Apparently they are about to strip some 2004 winners of their medals.
Beyond the Chinese, it will become tougher for the US to retain its big margins in swimming and track and field. We had an outstanding Olympics in those sports this year, but it is no guarantee that it will be easy to sustain. The rest of the world is catching up. Jamaica and the rest of the Carribean countries are challenging us in the sprints and middle distances and the Africans are dominating the distance events despite a down Olympics for Kenya. The Europeans will continue to be tough in the field events.
And it is worth noting that many Olympic athletes from other countries are training in the US, especially through collegiate athletics.
IMO the Chinese want to beat the US badly in the Olympics and will spare no effort to do so--legal and illegal. It is a matter of national pride. Despite all this, the US had a fantastic Olympics exceeding all expectations from the so-called experts. The Russians came on at the end finishing third in the medal totals just 6 medals behind the Chinese. They had 18 medals in track and field trailing just the US 29.
After watching our American team surpass all others in the medal count, I was thinking of how Obama might address the athletes. Based on some things he’s said in the past, here’s what I came up with:
Obama’s Address to the American Olympic Athletes
There are a lot of strong, successful American Olympians who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’re a great athlete, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I dedicated my life to this sport. There are a lot of people who dedicated their lives to something. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great coach somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to win that gold medal. Somebody invested in running tracks and gymnasiums. If you go to the pool — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The uneven bars didn’t get invented on their own. Government research created the uneven bars so that all the gymnasts could spin around real fast on them.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like playing basketball, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own basketball court. That would be a hard way to play a game of b-ball.
The Olympics is proof that free markets work over centralized plannig. Despite the net larger populations and near slave like training regimens from birth central planners cannot keep up with freedom.
Have any commentators covered this aspect of the Olympics? America is successful and rich because of our liberty, not inspite of it.
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