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From the author of Globally Rational  Once every four years, athletes from nearly every part of the world (yes, that includes Cuba and Palestine) make their way to attend a monumental event that celebrates our unity as humans and our progress towards international understanding. The world finally sees the fact that, through a peaceful series of games, we can identify ourselves not as enemies, but as friends. We can heal our animosity as we drop the labels of "Israeli" and "Palestinian", of "Ethiopian" and "Eritrean", of "Pakistani" and "Indian"; instead, we can learn to label ourselves as "human." We can bask in the beauty of our species as we watch a seemingly malnourished Kenyan finish ahead of his competitors who were trained by the world's top athletic coaches.But wait… why are they playing The Star Spangled Banner at the award ceremony? I remember that guy wearing a Kenyan uniform in 2004… he's American now? And it seems unusual that all four US table tennis players actually lived in China until it became obvious that they weren't good enough to get to their own national team. Does the US really need to import players to get more recognition in Beijing? Not surprisingly, China crushed us in the process of earning all four gold medals in table tennis, which effectively supplemented their 47 golds in the rest of the events. The US finished with 36 pieces of gold as a part of their Olympics-leading 110 total precious metal samples. The West and the East meshed together as Russia, Britain, Germany, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Italy, and France capped out the rest of the top ten. But what about everybody in between the West and the East? What about the huge hunk of matter in the Indian subcontinent, which houses 25% of the world's population but only earned 0.3% of Olympic accolade? What about Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America? What about Tibet and Kosovo, who couldn't send a delegation because their National Olympic Committees are not recognized by the International Olympic Committee? How can we leave out some of our biggest problem areas as we applaud the potential for international unity? We easily dismiss the less athletic regions as they fail to publicize their presence at this global peace conference. It was a big deal – a matter of national pride – when India won a gold medal this year for the first time since 1980. Pakistan and Bangladesh, the 6th and 7th-most populated countries in the world, were far from even getting a bronze. Australia, meanwhile, houses a population that is one-eighth of Pakistan's and boasts a Beijing medal count of 46, which is more than the entire subcontinent has ever earned (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have amassed a grand total of 32 medals since they sent their first team in 1928). In fact, Bangladesh has never won a medal. The Philippines (the world's 12th-most populated country) have won 9 in their entire history. Vietnam (13th-most populous) has received 2. I was in Pakistan for the 1992 and 1996 Olympics. We all rallied behind our only hope in Barcelona – the field hockey team that brought home a gold medal from Los Angeles – and felt ashamed to celebrate when the team's bronze finish became our only victory. It was a small pleasure when compared with the jubilant chaos that erupted we won the cricket World Cup earlier that year, but we would have extended our revelry had we known that Pakistan would never win another Olympic medal. The Atlanta games bore no fruit as we painstakingly watched the Australians, with their diminutive population, take over our field hockey bronze medal spot in addition to their 40 other awards. We were crushed; luckily, I would soon migrate to the place whose representatives make standard practice of finding their way to the medal stand. Here in America, we follow the Olympics with the hope of demonstrating our prowess to the rest of the world: we may only have one-fourth of China's population, but we can still manage to earn more medals than they can on their own home turf. In Pakistan, we just had the distant wish that we may hear our national anthem on an international television broadcast, as we did once in 1984. Any hopes of a camaraderie with the West are dismissed as the educated youth decide that they want to live in the country whose flag waves at the end of seemingly every event. It's a big international high school gym class, where the popular football players count how many times they can nail the skinny nerds in a dodgeball game. All of the world's nations get together to be crushed athletically by the people who also run the global economy. And we do it to promote peace. Trackback(0)
Comments (3)
  written by Kat, August 27, 2008
I agree with your comments about the olympics...it's like countries fighting in the sandbox! And I want to know where they come up with some of these "sports"?
Since when is "ping pong" worthy of a gold medal?
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I found this widget that displays who won the 2008 Olympics from different perspectives.
It displays medals won by total medal count and gold count.
In addition it can show medals won per million inhabitant and per million dollar GDP.
I think you might like it:-)
http://www.youcalc.com/apps/1219403616554?application_popup=1
It's free and easy to embed