No Points for Second Place

It is always a pleasure to watch both the Summer and the Winter Olympic Games as they come around every four years. People from all over the world gathering for the love of sport and competition while (hopefully) leaving politics behind. Though this is never accomplished completely, it is a worthy goal to have.

Alright, so by now you know I have an issue. Bitter, bitter on the wall, who's the bitterest of them all? ME. My issue is the American push for dominance. Just competing at the Olympic Games is an enormous honor and makes one an Olympian. If you are fortunate enough to win a medal, I would consider it icing on the cake. But the press makes it seem as though it is a gold medal or nothing. In the women's gymnastic team finals, it was a battle of nerves. All of the favored teams, the Americans, the Chinese, and the Russians were falling left and right under the pressure of the competition. In the end, the Chinese delivered on the last event and claimed the gold medal. The press was acting like there was a funeral going on and then began a campaign the next day accusing the Chinese of having athletes below the age of sixteen. Why is it so hard to celebrate the success of a silver medal? No matter what color the medal, winning one is an honor that will stay with the athlete until they die. Do we really need a moment to moment medals count by color? Is it really gold or nothing? Does it really matter which country takes home the most medals? It stands to reason that the countries with larger populations (ie. China, Brazil, India, the U.S., Indonesia) would be more likely to earn medals for their countries. Obviously countries like Vatican City or Togo are going to have less likelihood of winning medals than the larger countries.

In the true spirit of the Olympics, it would be nice to see the Americans be happy with the medals we bring home and not be so focused on dominating everything. If the U.S. government wanted to steer our foreign and domestic policy in this direction also, I would not be complaining.

Hope you are all doing well. Cuidate.