America managed to tie China for the most gold medals in the 2024 Summer Olympics. This feat was considered a victory for the United States.
Let’s examine more closely the American record. Even though the United States won a lot of medals (126), there are many areas where the country is not competitive. Here is a breakdown of where the country did not do so well.
Sport Total Medals American Medals
Archery 12 2
Badminton 15 0
Boxing 39 1
Canoe 48 2
Cycling 57 3
Judo 45 0
Rowing 42 1
Sailing 30 1
Shooting 45 3
Table Tennis 15 0
Taekwondo 32 1
Weightlifting 30 1
Wrestling 30 1
These are a lot of areas where the United States was shut off or was not competitive. Some of the sports are those where we once were a world class power and now the country is an afterthought assuming it is even thought about in the first place.
The total gold medals has declined from 48 in 2012 to 46 in 2016 to 40 in 2024.
COLLEGE SPORTS
Shortly after the Summer Olympics, Matthew Futterman wrote “A Critical Piece for U.S Olympic Success May Be in Jeopardy: College Sports (NYT, August 13, 2024, print).
… the American college sports system, which every year sustains and trains thousands of student in Olympic sports — both American and international students — is their golden goose. They are desperate to do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn’t get cooked by budget-conscious athletic directors and college presidents who might see runners and wrestlers and gymnast as a drain on resources instead of as an asset….
Beyond the direct financial support, coaching and training that college delivers, there is the hard-to-replicate competitive experience.
The list of sports where the United States is not competitive does not include any with revenue potential except occasionally at specific colleges. No TV contracts. No corporate sponsors. No money. It’s not just the athletes who are not making any money, it is the colleges as well. The system isn’t working anymore and the rest of the world is catching up.
Yes, the world doesn’t play fair. China isn’t quite East Germany but it is doing its best. And Russia is still the Soviet Union… or is it the other way around. Either way, other nations know that the Olympics is about bragging rights for one’s country. It is a venue where the world’s nations compete.
THE US DOMINATES THE OLYMPICS. WHY CAN’T IT DO THE SAME AT THE PARALYMPICS
This CNN posting September 9, 2024, begins much more pessimistically:
Olympic fans looking at the Paralympics final medal table are faced with an unfamiliar sight: Team USA lagging behind in the medal table.
While US Olympians have been dominating medal counts and airwaves for decades, their Paralympic colleagues have had far more modest success.
So far in the 21st century, the US has only failed to top the Olympic medal table once, but its average place in the Paralympic medals table from 2000 until Paris was fourth.
The United States has been improving lately but that only shows how far it had fallen.
Between 1976 and 1996, Team USA topped the medal table at every single Paralympics. The US is the all-time record holder for most overall and gold Paralympic medals, largely due to the nation’s dominance during this period.
Like many of the minor sports listed above, the Paralympic audience pales before that of the Summer Olympics:
In 2000, according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Sydney Olympics were watched by a combined TV audience of 3.7 billion. The Sydney Paralympics, however, were seen by a more modest 300 million people – in other words, 92% fewer people saw the Paralympics than the Olympics that year.
The lack of visibility feeds the lack of participation in a perpetual cycle.
Mary Hums, a sport administration professor at the University of Louisville who has worked at four Paralympic Games, told CNN Sport that a lack of prominent role models can impact people taking up para sport, and ultimately becoming Paralympians. “If you can’t see one, you don’t think you can be one,” she said.
There are consequences to this coverage.
“Future potential athletes have no role models to show them what they are capable of at a time in their lives when most of society is telling them they are incapable of just about anything useful,” Ian Brittain, an academic at Coventry University and an expert in the study of Paralympic sport, told CNN….
“It also reinforces the idea that the Paralympics and therefore Paralympians and/or disabled people are less important and less worthy of attention and acclaim than their non-disabled counterparts, which in turn continues their marginalization and exclusion from the wider society.”
Perhaps there will be a Sputnik moment.
Another major obstacle to US Paralympic dominance is the strength and depth of China’s para athletes squad….
China, on the other hand, sent the largest number of athletes to the Paris Paralympics – 282 compared to the United States’ 220. The Asian nation’s investment into sporting infrastructure is also a boon; Chinese Paralympians are able to train at the world’s largest training facility for elite athletes with disabilities, as well as at 30 other regional training centers.
The outcome is what should be expected.
“Unless a country is willing to replicate this kind of factory farming of para athletes and invest resources to this degree and beyond – or China decides it no longer wishes to do this – China will continue to dominate for many decades to come,” Brittain told CNN.
Indeed, the Asian nation finished top of the medal table in Paris by a large margin with 94 gold medals – slightly less than the United States’ total haul – and 220 total.
The level of Olympic success or lack thereof is not part of the political debate in the current presidential election. Instead we are treated to a lot of weird word salad except when swaying to the music for 39 minutes. One might think that the representing the country in the Olympics would count for something. Indeed the flag is waved and the national anthem is played. Still there is no place for the Olympics into the presidential campaigns. We have gone about as far as we can go without national leadership. There is something wrong with a system where a country where sports looms so large that there is no place in the national arena for the Olympic teams. The same is not true for the venues where cities compete to be the host but a corresponding commitment to the athletes is lacking.
Two weeks to the Civil War.
