A post-Olympic meltdown is taking place in China and Russia, as they lament not winning more gold medals in Tokyo. Chinese media has even gone so far as to include Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan medals in their count so that they end up with 42 gold medals, as opposed to the United States' 39 medals. I'm surprised Russia didn't try to include all the former Soviet nations in their medal count, instead they claim the Olympics were rigged against them by the US and its allies, costing them gold medals in gymnastics and other events.
I suppose there is no way to get around these medal counts. Russia didn't even compete as a country, but rather as the Russian Olympic Committee or ROC, due to the massive doping scandal they staged at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. They are lucky their athletes got to compete at all, but as long as they passed their drug tests before the Games they were allowed to take part.
However, Russia and China view the Olympics as a battle ground, investing heavily in the Games. Russia poured in an estimated $50 billion into the Sochi games, way over and above any previous investment in the Winter Games, which typically run between $1.5 to 2 billion. Part of the problem is that Sochi is known as a summer resort, not winter resort, and everything had to be built from scratch, including roads and other transportation services. Naturally, they wanted the most bang for their buck, so the Russian Olympic Committee devised an elaborate doping scheme that allowed them to change out samples overnight so that all their athletes tested negative.
This was somewhat inadvertently revealed by the doctor behind the scheme in the documentary Icarus on Netflix. The director and star of the film, Bryan Fogel, wanted to see how much doping actually impacted his performance as an amateur bicycle racer, and was given Grigory Rodchenko as a contact. The Russian doctor was well known in sports for hiding doping. Rodchenko admitted he devised the Sochi doping scheme in the documentary, with full approval of the ROC and the Kremlin. It really makes you wonder why the Russian Olympic athletes were able to compete under any banner at all.
But, Russian news media has exploded, claiming wild-eyed conspiracy theories that led to their country's poor showing in Tokyo. The worst since 1912, taking into account that they competed as the Soviet Union for most of those years. Knowing their team would have a hard time beating the US, they were hoping to draw satisfaction from China winning the most gold medals, but on the final day Team US pulled ahead by one gold medal, sending the Chinese media into a frenzy.
How could this be? China invested heavily in its Olympic programs, seizing on the less lucrative events and taking advantage of the more even competition among women. But, American women exceeded all expectations this time around, garnering 60 percent of the gold medals for the US. It was the men who under performed, flubbing events like the 4x100 relay, where they failed to reach the final heat due to poor hand-offs, and doing poorly in track and field overall.
However, this Olympics saw a great number of athletes from other countries do well. Italy won its first sprinting and high jump gold medals. Great Britain extended its strong showing in the Games ever since spending much more money on Olympic training. Japan also did exceedingly well. Australia, France, the Netherlands and Germany all scored at least 10 gold medals. If it was a conspiracy against the Soviet Union, er Russia, then it involved many countries.
The biggest sore point for Russian commentators appeared to be rhythmic gymnastics, a sport they have dominated ever since it became part of the Olympics in 1984. Russians were shocked when an Israeli woman won the individual overall gold medal and cried foul. "The medal of the Israeli sportswoman is worthless, she should throw it out!" shouted Oleg Matveychev, member of the Russian Expert Institute for Social Research. The outrage was so great that the Russian deputy prime minister sent a letter to the International Gymnastics Federation to review the case. They only need to find 29 more cases where their athletes were robbed of gold medals.
This is what happens when the Olympics becomes a proxy war between super powers. The irony here is the US government spends very little on its Olympic team, whereas China and Russia invest billions. For decades, the US Olympic Committee has relied on corporate sponsors and free market incentives to fund its programs. It also helps that the US has a vast high school and collegiate athletic program that serves as a valuable training ground not just for American athletes but for athletes from all over the world, including Russian athletes. If anyone should have a gripe it is the US, which sees these athletes competing against them in the Olympics.
It doesn't have to be this way. We could get rid of national flags all together and let the athletes compete individually, which is the way Pierre de Coubertin originally envisioned the Olympics. However, countries now take so much pride in the performances of their athletes that even if they officially did away with the medal table, unofficial ones would be kept by the media.
One can bet that China will go way out of its way to sport a gold medal-winning Olympic team in Beijing next year, even if the Winter Olympics are not China's strong point. China only won one gold medal at the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea, nine medals overall. So, any vast improvement, say 10 or 15 gold medals would definitely raise eyebrows.
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