Which way Beijing?

Lately I've not had time for many rowrz...I've had a bunch of things to rowr about, though. Here's one. Olympic medal counts.

So many news outlets here in the United States have chosen to print medal counts by total number of medals won, in which the United States came out on top pretty much since the games opened and ended up with 110 to China's 100. This may be just to make America feel better that China did, in fact, beat the pants off of us 51-36 in golds. Such negative feelings about any country bettering America at the Olympics is very much against the original ideas behind the games, and the Olympic creed itself:

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."

It is, however, pretty telling about our...ahem...national personality. Yeah, it seems we have a thing about being #1 at everything.

There is something else that Americans who feel this way might be able to take comfort in, though: there is a significant home court advantage for whatever country is hosting the games. There are a crowd of usual suspects that are nearly always in the top five, namely the United States, Russia (or the USSR), Italy, France, and Germany. Sweden, Hungary, and the United Kingdom have also traditionally had strong showings. The United States, has, in fact, been in the top five of every games that it has participated in. Russia has too. China has been winning a lot of medals in recent Games as well, and was #4 in 1992 and 1996, #3 in 2000 and #2 in 2004. It's only natural that this progress should continue, and compounded by the home court advantage led to an exceptional medal count.

So yeah, the home court advantage. There are three countries (Belgium, Greece, and South Korea) who have only been in the top five in the years that they have hosted. In fact, the host country is nearly always in the top five, and with few exceptions in the top ten. These exceptions are Canada (#27 in Montreal), Mexico (#15 at Mexico City in 1968), the United Kingdom (#12 at London in 1948, definitely a counterargument)and Greece (#15 at Athens in 2004). The United States has won the most gold medals at every Olympics it has hosted so far. The U.K., Russia, and China have too. France won the most in the 1900 games, but came in third in 1924. Germany won the most in 1936, but didn't do as well in 1972 as a divided country.

Of course, politics have to do with it as well. Especially with authoritarian regimes you get the need to prove that your country is better. See Germany in 1936, Russia in 1980, Mexico in 1968 (in 1964 they had been #35) and China this year.
During the Cold War the US and the USSR generally traded the top two places back and forth when they weren't boycotting each other.

So yes, winning gold medals seems to be less about athletics and more about how much in the way of resources individual nations put in to their Olympic teams. Panama had only 3 athletes at the 2008 Olympics, and brought home a single medal. China had 639 athletes there. The U.S. had 596.

Anyway, it's supposed to be friendly competition, don't put so much importance on medals. Celebrate the individual athletes.