Because You Never Asked

     (Author's note - Since the '92 Games in Barcelona, I've written a number of essays about the Olympic Movement. I will now give the reader a 3 pack of such, spanning the Games from Barcelona to Salt Lake City in 2002.)

     As the centennial celebration of the modern Olympic Games approaches, one has to wonder if this extravagant sporting spectacle is really a positive exercise for the human race. What was once considered a friendly gathering of athletes from around the world, meant to foster goodwill and harmony amongst men, has become a slovenly feeding frenzy of commercial activity and chest thumping jingoism aimed directly at piling up medals for one's pocket book, sponsor and country . and all in that order! The flap created in Barcelona by the American basketball team, the fabulous "Dream Team" (more on them later), as to whose logo to wear while accepting their medals, is sickening proof of this. In today's "New World Order" one's allegiance to Nike or Reebok seems far more important than that to one's country, all teary-eyed clichés of patriotic goose bumps to the contrary.

     I'd like to take this piece and turn it into a devil's advocacy aimed at destroying the propaganda for which all nations use the Olympics to glorify themselves. In order to belittle these self-serving Olympic pretensions, I shall examine the results of the world's most recent Olympic experience, the beautifully staged Barcelona Games.

     Before getting to the real nuts and bolts of my presentation, which will conclusively prove who really "won" the Barcelona Olympics, I'd like to give you an example of the chauvinistic journalism that so annoys me at these Cleopatran sporting fiestas: Two American broadcasters are setting the stage for the basketball game between the "Dream Team" and the Spanish National Team. Their chatter is centered on how the Spaniards have become avid basketball fans that greatly admire the talent of the awesome American team. As a frequent visitor to Spain, I can vouch for the veracity of such assertions. The final question by the studio announcer to his colleague at courtside is whether or not the hometown Spaniards might actually be rooting for the idolized Americans. Simply raising such a question is silly enough, but the answer is muddled and non-committal, giving the impression this might really be the case. This makes me very angry, perhaps because I love Spain and know its people. To even suggest they might prefer the inevitable Spanish defeat is a gross manhandling of reality. Such an upset would have been the country's greatest triumph since the days of Cortez and Pizarro. Blow the whistle, technical foul! (As I put this essay on the Web, less than ten years after it was written, it should be noted that the Spaniards actually beat an American team full of NBA All Stars in the last World Championships played in Indianapolis).

     This absurd incident is by no means an isolated case nor is it just an American symptom. The Olympic theater seems to bring these childish tendencies out in everyone, but since I am an American and my country is always a gold medal contender when it comes to glorifying itself, my "anti-propaganda" will be confined to bursting the bubble of our superiority at the Barcelona Games. As a theoretic counterweight to those who would glorify our performance, I will look to tarnish our accomplishments. By so doing, I will show just how easy it is, if one is not being objective, to minimize and degrade as it is to enhance and praise. Even the incomparable "Dream Team" will not escape such scorn.

     Who really won the Barcelona Olympics? What country has shown the best?

     From an American point of view the answer is patently obvious; we did! We won a whopping total of 108 medals, second only to the Unified Team (interesting name for a country that had just fallen apart) with 112. This lesser total is easy to rationalize because we all know the Russkies use illegal elephant hormones and pile up cartloads of medals in such ludicrous sports as Siberian Bear Wrestling.

     In my role as an American anti-propagandist, I must seriously dispute these findings. There is a far more rational way to find a winner: By dividing the number of medals won into a nation's population, we find out which nation won the most medals per-capita, certainly a more honest reflection of efficient performance. In the case of the United States, there was one medal won for every 1.9 million freedom-loving patriots. Using only this criteria, no less than 33 countries performed better than us in Barcelona. The gold would go to Qatar, whose single medal for a population of 100,000 tops the list. The silver goes to the Bahamas, it's one medal representing its 168,000 people, and the bronze goes to Cuba, with one medal for every 250,000 Cubans. (Author's note - as I put this essay on the Web almost ten years after it was written, the population figures used at that time are now somewhat outdated.)

     This, however, is not an acceptable measure of success. Just as baseball would never award its batting title to someone who has only come to the plate ten times, I too must base the medals on something more solid, more consistent, more convincing. Nice going Qatar, good job Bahamas, but neither of you is in the running for the gold.

     In order to be eligible for consideration, a minimum of ten medals won is required. This is sufficient proof as to a country's athletic development and well roundedness. Using this dictate for consideration, 20 nations are included, 14 of which had better numbers than the United States. You may all begin chanting . "we're #15, we're #15, we're #15 ." The gold goes to a country with America's official "Most Wicked Nation Status", those wretched Cubans! Being that your average "yanqui" is duty bound to hate this country, for an American anti-propagandist there is a certain degree of poetic justice here. Cuba's one medal for every 250,000 starving socialists is a winning rate 7.6 times greater than the "gringo imperialists" to the north. The silver goes to New Zealand, with one medal for every 280,000 Kiwis, and the bronze goes to Hungary with one for every 330,000 inhabitants.

     But let's forget silver and bronze. America is the most competitive place this side of the Star Ship Enterprise. This competition is based on winning, which isn't everything, "it's the only thing" (Vince Lombardi). In America, if the winner gets champagne, the runner up gets Kool Aid. Let's talk about gold baby, gold!

     Thirty-seven countries won gold medals in Barcelona. Of those 37, 20 did better than the United States when compared against their populations. The gold for gold, once again, goes to those pesky Cubans, with one gold medal for every 610,000 people. This means Cuba produced gold medals at a rate 3.1 times greater than we did for all medals. The silver goes to Hungary, with one gold medal for every 940,000 Zsa Zsa Gabors, and the bronze is for Australia, with a victory for every 1.8 million Aussies.

     This gets me to the incredible "Dream Team", the greatest basketball team ever assembled. American pride rested more on the shoulders of these pampered millionaires than on anything else in these Games. Surely, not even the shrewdest "anti-propagandist" could minimize the flat out dominance of these talented athletes.

     Before attempting just that, a few general comments.

     Except for an odd moment or two from our official court jester, Charles Barkley, the American players competed in a dignified manner. What I found somewhat morbose was the utterly bloodthirsty way in which the American public reveled in the slaughter, an attitude somewhat reminiscent of our Gulf War sadism. This desperate need to totally annihilate obviously weaker foes could be construed as a sign of weakness. It must be remembered that nobody from anywhere else has ever claimed to have better basketball players than America's best. No Soviet, no Yugoslav, Croat, Lithuanian or Brazilian has ever made such a claim. What's all the fuss?

     In many respects, the "Dream Team" adds relevance to my emphasis on a nation's population. If we omit the purely honorary choice of the team's one collegian, Christian Laettner, we see that no two players even came from the same state, and the whole far flung geography of our vast country came into play. Patrick Ewing was born in Jamaica and David Robinson is a Navy brat born in Key West. It could be argued that in order to form this optimal expression of basketball talent, all the manpower resources of this gigantic nation were utilized.

     Compare this resource against the silver medallist in Barcelona, namely Croatia, a country with less than five million people. If we were to limit our team to currently active players from any political entity within the United States with less than five million people . could a team of native Brooklynites or Los Angelans, of Kentuckians or Tennesseans beat the Croatians? We might have a real battle here.

     So now we see, with a bit of creativity, any nation can interpret the Olympic Games any way they want. I now echo the question I raised at the very beginning of this essay; has the modern Olympic experience been a positive exercise for the human condition?

     If the stated purpose of the Olympic Movement is to foster peace, harmony and goodwill amongst men, in looking back at the 20^th century one has to be very dubious with regard to calling it a success. We are about to conclude the most war-filled century in the history of this planet, a century infected with unprecedented death and destruction. It would certainly be unfair to blame the Olympic Movement for such carnage, but it is not unreasonable to suggest that it has done very little to help and may have, in its own small way, contributed to the horrors of the last hundred years. One might ask, is a highly competitive sporting spectacle pitting nation against nation the best road to peace, harmony and goodwill amongst men? Perhaps a similar gathering focused on something more artistic and cultural would far better serve this cause.

     I, for one, have heard enough National Anthems to last me a lifetime.