American dominance should continue in Beijing Olympics.
It’s a pretty interesting coincidence that places the Summer Olympics on the same exact schedule as the U.S. presidential election cycle. When Americans’ political interests are peaked, our nationalism also reaches its height as we cheer on our nation’s best athletes. They try to prove what we already know: the American Olympic team has more money and better training facilities than any other nation’s. Of course, with the world’s largest GDP and, in many sports, the most lucrative athletic opportunities — not to mention a death grip on the International Olympic Committee — all odds are in America’s favor to extend its 1000 all-time medal count lead over Russia in Beijing.
If you need proof that it’s a largely American fanfare beyond the fact that the United States has hosted the Olympics twice as many times as any other nation, BMX racing will be added to the slate of events this summer. In an effort to appeal to younger viewers, the IOC made the move to include the X-Games event in which racers pedal off-road bicycles around a course of jumps and bumps. Southern California teenagers who were looking for a less expensive and less dangerous way to imitate their favorite Motocross heroes created BMX. Recently, in an early step toward creating the Beijing BMX roster, the U.S. cycling team announced five men who would compete in international competition. Four of the five were from California.
The addition of BMX contrasts sharply with the IOC’s recent decision to exclude baseball and softball from the Olympics following Beijing. Of course, baseball and softball are both very regional sports, popular only marginally outside of Central and Northern America and Japan. Baseball as an Olympic sport, however, was supplanted by the World Baseball Classic, a much more legitimate option. Softball has no alternative outlet, but this is to be expected. Since softball’s addition as an Olympic sport in 1996, America has captured all three gold medals.
In a more truly international event, swimming, American Michael Phelps looks to improve on his record setting performance in 2004. Beijing’s new 17,000-seat swimming venue will get plenty of airtime as the swimming finals will be held in the morning in Beijing, which is coincidentally American primetime. The American women’s swim team should be helped by the recent announcement from Australia’s star 100-meter freestyle gold medalist Jodie Henry that she will not be able to compete in Beijing due to an injury. Also, Japanese swimmers Reiko Nakamura and Yuko Nakanishi both set world records in the 200m backstroke and butterfly, respectively, in the Japan Open short course swimming championships.
Turning another Olympic favorite, gymnastics, 16-year-old American superstar Shawn Johnson failed to defend her American Cup championship as she lost it to 2006 champion, Nastia Liukin, who is also Johnson’s roommate. Johnson attempted the most difficult vault and fell whereas Liukin displayed the most difficult uneven bars routine and nailed it. There remain, of course, more competitions to decide who will make the team, but the duo will likely be an excellent story in Beijing.
Additionally, Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons, the first African-American to win the all-around NCAA gymnastics title, will be vying for a spot on the 2008 team — but he has an entire season at Oklahoma before that comes along.
China’s basketball team suffered a blow recently with Yao’s foot injury. The long anticipated home court campaign of the international superstar is currently in limbo as Yao receives surgery. Also, the quadrennial struggle between NBA teams and players is heating up as Kobe Bryant has pushed addressing the issue of an injured pinky finger until after the Games. Along with Bryant, a tired but Olympic-bound Dwayne Wade struggles in Miami. Coach Krzyzewski should have fun trying to calm the egos that have plagued the USA team for the last decade.
In an interesting side story, American Sheila Taormina will compete in her fourth Olympics. Think it’s nothing special? She’s hoping to qualify for her third sport, the modern pentathlon. In Atlanta in 1996, she competed as a swimmer, and in 2000 and 2004, she competed in the women’s triathlon.
As an endurance athlete though, Sheila Taormina and the rest of the international endurance athletes, including marathon world record holder Haile Gebrselassie, who told Reuters he has not decided whether or not he will compete, are worried how the thick air pollution in Beijing will affect their bodies. The American Olympic Committee recently released a report telling athletes that no training can help prepare them for the polluted conditions, citing worries that some athletes in training may try to condition themselves by training with polluted air.
Of course, the polluted air isn’t the only worry of the 2008 summer Olympics. Activist groups are threatening to protest the Olympics and boycott and harass Olympic sponsors, such as McDonald’s, because of China’s funding of the Khartoum regime in Darfur through oil purchases. Steven Spielberg, director of Schindler’s List, withdrew from his position as artisitic director of the opening ceremony on these same grounds of protest. Journalist Nat Hentoff of the Jewish World Review coined the term “Genocide Olympics” to describe the situation.
Also, the United States and others are using the increased exposure garnered from the Olympics to pressure China to reduce its civil rights violations. In an interesting twist, the Chinese government arrested four U. S. citizens at the Chinese Mt. Everest base camp for protesting against Beijing’s plans to bring the Olympic torch through the region.
Assuming nothing goes tragically wrong and we don’t have another fiasco a la 1980, the Olympics may serve as another platform for America to flaunt her might.
Branden Adams ’11 (badams@fas) is training for a spot on the 2012 BMX roster.