By Tom Kando
The Vancouver games are over. We won the most medals - 37. Here is a partial list, ranking the top 10 recipients:
1. US: 37
2. Germany: 30
3. Canada 26
4. Norway 23
5. Austria 16
6. Russia 15
7. South Korea 14
8. Sweden 11
9. China 11
10. France 11
Another 16 countries got medals, and 56 did not. I’ll skip an attempt to weigh gold, silver and bronze. For example, if we gave 3 points for every gold medal, 2 for silver and 1 for bronze, South Korea would rank #5, ahead of Austria and Russia.
I just want you to ponder the question in the title of this essay.
Right away you say, that’s a stupid question. Correct. It’s a rhetorical question. Which means that the answer is obvious. It is: “No!”
For one thing, were we to look at each country’s medals in proportion to population, the US haul comes out to one eighth of a medal per million population. In contrast, Norway won six medals for every million Norwegians. Austria, 2 per million, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Latvia and God knows who else each won at least one medal per million people. So all these countries would be “better” than America, in a political and moral sense.
But as you already said, the question is idiotic. And you are right. Were I to ask my six-year old grand son whether the number of medals won by each country translates into the country’s “goodness” or badness,” he would probably laugh, understanding the question’s stupidity.
But here is my main point today: Equating Olympic success with a regime’s moral worth has been precisely what dozens of countries have done for decades! There was the USSR and such acolytes as East Germany. For years, those governments cheated and went all out in every possible way to stack the Olympic cards in their favor, to prove that Marxist society was superior. Isn’t that saying “yes” to the question in the title of my essay?
And I am sure that there are lots of people and governments today (China?) which still believe that Olympic prowess is an indicator of national worth and character. Pure chauvinism. So the silly question I asked in jest, is actually one which millions of people would answer in the affirmative.
I personally enjoyed the games a lot. I sometimes rooted for the US, sometimes for the Dutch skaters, sometimes for poor Hungary that didn’t get a single medal. But remember: the only thing that winning many medals means is: you won many medals. Nothing else. leave comment here