13 Comments

This is truly a very interesting development. China pushes its young athletes to the point of absurdity. It is my guess that its bureaucrats commit themselves to particular individuals at a very young age. They have too much invested to later admit that a mistake has been made. Also, many human beings do not start showing athletic greatness until their late teens. Michael Jordan, for instance, did not earn a spot on his school’s basketball team on his first attempt! The odds are that he would have never had a chance to develop if he had lived in China.

Its good to see other nations in the light for a change.I also agree with David above here.Hes right.

As of earlier today, the UK was tied for 3rd/4th with the Aussies in the gold medal count, which is also an interesting development. It must be at least 50 years since the Brits have done so well in the Summer games. Go Anglosphere!

For years now, I’ve been getting the distinct feeling that the Chinese are the heirs to the Soviet Union in international athletics. The state invests so heavily in supporting these athletes because they think that dominating the Olympics and such will demonstrate their superiority as a nation and a people (although with the Soviets, I suppose the whole international Communism thing was part of it, too).

I always take some cheer from seeing an athelete from a small obscure country winning a medal, but the size of the source population for a country’s athletes is not very important for the success of its team. And for the same reason I have a problem with saying that the gold medal winner is the best in the world at whatever he or she did.

No great athletic talent can make the olympics on talent and hard work alone. They are not drawn from the general population such that a group of 200 would be likely to produce twice as many as a group of 100. Rather, they are drawn from the much smaller group of people who’s talents are spotted early and have extremely supportive parents with the financial means to give that child every advatange of training.

That is, these medalists are the best of a very small elite who have little or nothng to do with the larger population of their country. The greatest beach volleyball player in the world, ability-wise, might never have seen a volleyball and spent the olympics ice fishing in Siberia, the greatest ski jumper might spend the winter olympics cleaning fish in the Canary Islands, the greatest marathoner shoveling coal in Germany. And so on.

I bet the Ozzie female gymnasts are actually at least 16, too.

(And Tim, of course being at the pinnacle doesn’t mean that that individual is the best of all humans for that position. Does anyone really think that the two people in America best qualified to be President are Obama and McCain?)

Scott

actually the surprise is the British being third in gold medal count

Of the 35 Australian medals, all but 4 involved swimming, boating, diving, etc. Aussies are fast in the water!

Australia is the second most heavily shark bitten nation.

Only the United States has more shark attacks annually than Australia. And guess who has more swimming medals?

Sharks in the water. Fast swimmers. Coincidence? Does the presence of sharks motivate people to swim more quickly?

On the other hand, how many sharks are bitten by Aussies? Quite a few, I would imagine. Australians are scary people.

“”"”"Does the presence of sharks motivate people to swim more quickly?”"”"

It would motivate me to stick to swimming pools.

Interesting that India, with about 1,000,000,000 people, has two medals. I guess the Olympic sports aren’t that big there.

Scott

Very interested that the Chinese have relied on “sports” where subjective judging is required for victory, whereas the US prevails where there is an impartial clock or in an actual head to head competition with points involved .

You have to consider that the Australian government (through its sports development programs etc.) spent an estimated $17 million per medal won. How does that stack up with the others I wonder?

i have been living in asia for the last 12 years and have known many, MANY aussies during my time here.

they are always, almost without exception, laid-back, friendly, and fun, and MAN CAN THEY DRINK!

love ‘em! good on ya, ozzies!