Post Olympics, Day 1

So today we head back to our "normal" American sports.  I have quite a few musings on the Olympics themselves.  I love watching lesser-heralded sports (at least in the US) during the quadrennial games.  Water Polo (the most grueling sport) and Team Handball (the fiercest sport) stand out as fun to watch.  However, because NBC gets higher ratings from swimming and gymnastics and other sports that we dominate, you only see these on MSNBC at 2 o'clock in the morning.

I also find fault with those saying that we "won" the Olympics.  Yes, we had more medals than any other country, but let's do a bit of a deeper analysis.  Of the 104 medals won by US athletes, 60 (that's right, sixty) of them were in swimming or track and field.  I am taking nothing away from those athletes by any means, however, China won no more than 10 medals in any sport, yet still won 88 medals.  I am not espousing that the USOC should create athletic factories, but it seems like the sports are aligned with our strengths.

Why do we insist on trying to make sure we "win" everything?  Isn't that exactly what we find fault in with our rivals the Chinese and before them the Soviets and East Germans?  Let amateurs play and don't worry about what other countries do.  If our basketball teams or tennis players do not win gold medals, they will quickly realize they play for higher trophies in their real sports (NBA Championships, Wimbledon).  We care so little about soccer here that we don't cry foul when the Olympics are a 23-under event, because we did not even qualify.

The Olympics do bring the world together on one stage.  My kids learned about countries that they never knew existed.  They learned about the history of British music during the closing ceremonies, and even compared John Lennon to Harry Potter (the resemblance was uncanny).  I remember my first Olympics watching Nadia Commenici in 1976 in Montreal gain her fame from achieving perfect 10's in gymnastics.

I simply wish NBC would worry a bit less about ratings and revenue and more about making this country less American-centric.  But I will watch Russia in 2014 and Brazil in 2016, you can count on it.