Something I never realized about the Olympics
Okay I did
not get to watch the Olympics given that there’s no TV where I am. Actually
there is a TV, but it’s only used for movies with limited reception and
electricity. I did see a few minutes of it once when I was waiting for a
haircut, though. I doubt that counts. Hearing about the Olympics here in Uganda
is surprisingly different than in the U.S., which is the topic of this blog.
There was a
continued hope that Uganda would win something. And I mean literally win something. This year, one runner won a
gold medal, and it created a national stir. This was the first time Uganda had
won gold in two decades. He was on the front cover of both major newspapers,
and a buzz surrounded this for the next several days. The U.S., though, won
quite a bit of medals, more than other country as a matter of fact. (Because I
don’t have internet when I type this, I can’t look up how many, but if someone who
does have internet can and provide this in a comment or email it to me so that
I can add it, that would be helpful. This and possibly amount of money each
country puts in.)
Uganda sent a small, significantly
less funded team to the Olympics than the U.S., and guess who gets all the
medals. My friend was talking about this. Here it is special when anyone wins
anything, and in the U.S. it is not really that big of a deal when an
individual athlete/team comes back with a gold. I don’t mean to belittle U.S.
winning celebrations – clearly many care – but there aren’t mass celebrations,
front page (and the whole page at that) articles, or monetary prizes for
winning like there were here. It just goes to show you the unequal
international system that makes us a superpower and other countries
significantly less off.
The U.S. Team won 46 gold, 29 silver and 29 bronze. China (next in terms of count) won 38 gold, 27 silver and 23 bronze.
ReplyDeleteI always root for the "small guys" in the Olyumpics -- the Jamaican runners, or (my personal favorite) -- Kirani James from little tiny Grenada who won a GOLD int he 400 meter run. You go baby -- from a country with 110,000 people. THAT's cause for celebration!
The US Olympic Committe budget is $170 million per year. Typical athletes pay $20 or 30k to come to the games. We sent 529 to the 2012 Summer Olympics. The $170 million budget is approximately equal to the 2012 budget for the entire COUNTRY of Grenada.
They say money can't buy love, or happiness. But it sure as heck can buy some Olympic medals.
P.S. I thinl there is indirect contribution too -- there may be a super athlete in Uganda who never comes near the Olympic since he or she is depsarately needed on the farm -- we can afford to discover and encourage such a person in the pursuit of a medal.
Some of the lack of medals may be organizational too -- Kenya garnered a respectable 11 medals in the Olympics, which proportional to the population is about 3/4ths the rate of the U.S. (11 vs 104, and 41 Million vs 305 million people). So I would guess there is something in how the athletes are organized and supported too -- but even that may be a money thing.
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