1) “Traditionally the Olympics have been won by whoever gets more Gold medals”
No, that’s not true – traditionally the Olympics have never been ‘won’ by anyone. The Olympics were revived to be a unifying event that brought the world together. That concept of ‘winning’ it never was part of the Olympic movement.
According to IOC President Jacques Rogge:
"I believe each country will highlight what suits it best. One country will say, 'Gold medals.' The other country will say, 'The total tally counts.' We take no position on that." (Shipley, Amy. August 25, 2008. "China's Show of Power". The Washington Post)
2) “In 2008 the US media started counting only TOTAL medals since China was leading the US in gold”
Nope, wrong again. The US has ALWAYS used the total medal count. In fact, it wasn’t until the breakup of the USSR that the US started to top the total medal count. No conspiracy there, look it up. The Olympics were historically an amateur event and the US was one of the handful of countries that played by the rules. By the 1992 games the ‘amateur’ rule was dropped and that’s when the US finally started to send their pro athletes – but not every best athlete they have goes. In the 2000 games, for example, the US Olympic baseball team was made up of college and semi-pro players (they won gold).
Prior to the Beijing games it was reported in the US and internationally (I read about it in Vietnam’s English language newspaper) that China was spending millions on coaches and training for the upcoming games. However, they focused on events that were more obscure and had little competition – air-rifle, ping pong, badminton – second tier games as opposed to the premier events which were dominated by the big sporting powers like the US, Germany, Russia, and Australia.
In essence it was a propaganda campaign for domestic Chinese consumption – winning a bunch of gold medals looks good on home soil and adds legitimacy to the Chinese Communist government which has been under increasing unrest from within. It worked, China won gold in air-rifle and ping pong and everyone was happy. But there was one problem – China blasted to the world “Look at us, we won the Olympics” (and, again, no one ‘wins’ the Olympic Games).
So what happened? People looked at China and said a) no one ‘wins’ the Olympics, and b) they won in obscure sports with little competition and not against the strong national teams.
And how much did China spend for their gold in air-rifle and ping pong? I’ve heard tens of millions of dollars, maybe more. And how much does the US spend on its team? ZERO! The US provides NO funding for its athletes’ training. These are people who are regular folks with jobs – sometimes two jobs – while trying to make the Olympics. Again, if you don’t believe me, look it up – the US provides ZERO funding.
3) “I'm not anti American but I know America doesn't like to be second in anything and in 2008 that was pathetic.”
Just what was “pathetic”? If you’re referring to the coverage then you obviously don’t know much about the US or spent much time there – especially during the 2008 games. If anything you would have been impressed with the media coverage. It was extremely complimentary to China and nothing – and I mean nothing – was said regarding coming in ‘second’. It was only later when international media outlets started to pick up on China’s ‘winning’ comment and the fact the Chinese specifically targeted soft events where it could win more medals that people started to brush China off. And that’s what people did – brush China off.
Seriously, do you really think China ‘won’ because it picked up medals in weak sports with little competition while purposely avoiding direct competition with the US and others in the premier events? If you had a chance to watch Olympic ping pong or Olympic track and field, which one would you watch? My point exactly.
So, we are left with the following:
• China spends tens of millions to get medals in sports with little competition.
• China can’t compete with the US, Australia, and others in the premier sports.
• Then China has the gall to declare that they ‘won’ a sporting event that can’t be won or lost because they took the easy road.
• And did so while unilaterally declaring that the ‘official’ standard is the amount of gold medals even though the IOC said that no such standard exists.
I’ve seen a lot of postings from Chinese about the 2008 games and the medal/gold count. I don’t think the problem is that Americans are upset about winning less gold medals; I think it’s the Chinese that are upset because they thought their plan to win gold was ingenious but in reality it made them look rather silly.
By the way, the Chinese female double’s badminton team was disqualified for cheating.