Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction
Sounds like excuses to me. You realize that athletes in most countries get almost zero funding... I mean, look at a lot of these little African, Latin American, and Asian countries that seem to do well relative to their size. Many of those athletes get little support from their governments. Personally, I would love to see a level playing field where a country's wealth and ability to spend doesn't affect how many medals a country can win.
Honestly, does winning medals at the Olympics really make a big difference to the average citizen? I don't think it changes our lives at all one way or the other. For the people directly involved, maybe, but not for most of us.
Personally, I think there is a lot to be said for a country that can get past something superficial like piling up medals.
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Actually I have to disagree with a lot of this. The country's that are the summer Olympic powerhouses like China, Australia, Japan, Russia and the US get complete funding. They were talking about it on NBC the night before last during their olympic coverage. Australia poured massive funds into their Olympic program before they hosted the olympics in Sydney and it showed as they had their highest medal count ever at 58.
I think that the medal count means a lot to the average citizen. If you hear people talking about Canada at the olympics do you hear them saying "so and so finished 20th but did a personal best..."?? No, you hear..."we have ZERO medals after day 5..." Not to mention how much of a source of pride that it is to compete against the world and actually win.
I agree that it is a great story when someone from a little known country can walk away from the olympics with a gold medal. This is a great for that country. If a person from Uzbekistan finished in the middle of the pack....who cares, who notices....but when they win, then the world notices and people start to say, "where is this country?" and actually take notice of it and learn about it.
What irks me is that we send hundreds of atheletes to the summer olympics to basically be spectators when our country has the means to be able to train them to be among the best. One swimmer from the US is going to win more medals then our entire country.
I know most people don't care about the summer olympics but this is why IMO...we suck at them anyway, why bother...
At least we will kick butt in 2010 in Vancouver....