The real American medal count at the 2008 Olympics.
As of August 16, 2008 the United States has won 57 medals at this year’s Olympic games (17 gold, 18 silver, and 22 bronze)
An impressive total indeed.
But as I’ve watched the swimming and track and field events I’ve been struck by how many athletes live, train, and go to school in the United States but compete for another country at the Olympics.
Some of these folks were even born here.
For example, the silver medalist in the men’s 100 meter dash, Richard Thompson, was this year’s NCAA 60m and 100m champion from Louisiana State University (no doubt attending LSU on an athletic scholarship paid for by the taxpayers of Louisiana).
He ran for Trinidad and Tobago in Beijing.
The silver medalist in the men’s 100 meter butterfly, Milorad Cavic, was born in Anaheim and went to UC Berkeley.
He swam for Serbia in Sydney and in Beijing.
And there are plenty more where these two came from.
Compare this to the woman’s gymnastics individual all-around gold-medalist Nastia Luikin: born in Moscow, raised, trained, and schooled in Texas, competing for the United States in Beijing.
If you live, train, go to school, and/or were born in the United States and are good enough to win a silver medal at the Olympics wouldn’t it make sense to represent the country that has helped you achieve your athletic promise?
I’m all for Americans maintaining ties to their country of origin (we’re all immigrants if you go back far enough) but if you want to represent your “homeland” in the Olympic games maybe you should live, train, and go to school there?
In my opinion, if you want to know how many medals the United States has really won in Beijing you’ll have to add in the medals won by athlete’s who’ve come here to take advantage of our way of life and training systems but then used those advantages to win medals for other countries.
At a minimum, that’ll add at least 2 more silvers to our take.
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2 Responses to “The real American medal count at the 2008 Olympics.”
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Many of those athletes are driven by the personal fame, rather than representing the country. For many of them, it’s either cannot get to olympics under Country’s flag, or represent another country and have a chance to participate. US is not the only exception, and there is actually a lot more non-Americans, or ones that recently defected their countries that represent the US than the other way around. I would not use this as an excuse to go after the people who want a medal.
That is a pretty ignorant article. I wrote a long rebuttal however by the end of it I had over a page and realized no one would read it so I’ve shortened it to a couple simple points.
1, Just because they go to school in the US, doesn’t make them American. If they do not hold US citizenship they can’t race for the US.
2. Many American Universities offer these people scholarships leave their home and come to the US to race for them. They do not come and beg for money.
3. These peoples funding can come from many sources and if a person is racing for Serbia, there is a good chance Serbia is supporting them somehow, possibly financially. They are bringing their sponsorships and other financial support to the area and spending the money there instead of at home therefore they are bringing more money to the local area than they are taking out.
Stop being so selfish and be happy for those people and take pride knowing that they will be bringing that medal to the US when they come back for school or work. All that is missing is a number on the final US medal tally. A number most people will forget in 2 weeks.