“Sorry I don’t watch girls gymnastics, but haven’t the Chinese essentially swept the events? That would seem to say that there is an advantage to the use of pre-pubescent girls”
women’s competition - China wins gold.
Our girls outclass china on all events except bars (except for this night - Alica Sacramone fall on her beam mount - but one chinese gymnast also falls. Alicia falls again on floor - but china also puts up a ridiculously sloppy routine from a pre-pubescent)
China broke away with over a full point lead on bars. This is when they put up 3 underage girls against true 16 year olds and a 19 yr.old.
Bars is where it pays to be a prepubescent. Swinging is easier - they don’t have to hold their feet up while swinging under the low bar, and they don’t have to break their bodyline in between the bars.
Men’s team competition - china wins gold. No controversy.
Men’s all-around competition - china wins gold. No controvery.
Women’s all-around - americans take gold and silver despite obviously skewed scoring against the americans.
None of it really matters now. I don’t believe it’s “grasping” for a country to invest government resources into winning the Olympics, the games are clearly a cog in the machine of “soft power” - something Americans seem to have developed either amnesia or disdain over. At this point it’s less about winning the games than about losing them specifically to China, which is one of the “ultimate goals” the Chinese government wanted. It is, as an article several weeks ago noted, Chinas first chance to “defeat” us on the world stage in some way, in front of the entire world. There’s a reason they sunk so much into this, it’s not like the old Soviet Union or eastern bloc countries, this is about China demonstrating its power and dominance, saying “this is just the beginning.”
We know that’s why these games were given to China, we knew that’s what they wanted. Many ordinary Chinese, even those unhappy with their government, have commented that these games are one of the most important events in China’s history.
And we simply sat by and gave it to them. I particularly loved the shooter yesterday who once again was in the lead and once again only had to perform without a mistake, not great, just don’t screw up. Instead, for the second straight games, he screwed up, costing us not only a gold we thought we had, but costing us a medal toward the overall tally, and ALSO giving the Chinese yet another gold. Down the line we have fallen short or just plain flopped.
The medal race is over, we may win the overall count, but that’s not what counts, and we can’t touch China in the golds now. There are predictions they may push nearly 50 golds, while we’ll be lucky to see 30. That makes all of the projections before the games of a China win look bizarrely conservative. It’s going to be an utter blowout, and it will be used as symbolism for China’s blowing us out of the water in every other respect in the near future.
I’m blown away that we didn’t even try to counter this. Even the Canadians are investing over $100 million for the next Olympic games beyond their normal investment. Again, if it didn’t mean something, why does everyone else try so hard? If it didn’t mean something, why do we scrap to raise $150 million privately to fund our own athletes? If it didn’t mean something, why are any of us talking about Chinese underage athletes? Or skewed judging? If we’re going to get absolutely rolled the first time a new competitor really brings their ‘A’ game, why are our athletes even bothering? (If the EU ever competed as a single entity, we’d have been rolled long ago.)
Either we care or we don’t. If we do care, it would not take a great deal of additional funding to remove some of the roadblocks we have in place for funneling our best athletes through our massive already-existing athletics programs. But if we keep blocking athletes out due to funding issues, if we keep having to rely on people for four years who time and again are injured or otherwise withdraw at the last moment leaving us scrambling, then we’re just going to become a laughingstock. We may win a lot of medals, but we don’t win them commensurate with our size, our sporting history and the amount of money we spend on sports in general.