There is Gold In Dem Der Hills

Seeing the medal count updates on American television always can be puzzling to me. Our national media presents daily medal count updates which seem to stress the importance of where the United States is compared to other countries of the world. The emphasis is on 'total medal count'.

There are several issues I have with this.

The obvious is, why do we as Americans put so much emphasis on nationality when it comes to the Olympics? We will sit through hours of prime time television to see how an American Ice Skater who pulls a 6th place finishes out, and miss out on excellent gold-medal performances by other international athletes simply because there is no American contender for that event. Are we Americans so enthralled by our own nationalism that we can't even appreciate the excellence of individual athletes? I actually think not, however I do think we allow our national media to dumb down Olympic coverage for us. We should probably demand more from our media.

The second issue is even more simple. Since when did silver and bronze medals really become so important to us? It is very American to say 'winning is everything', and second place is like 'kissing your sister'.  So why, when it comes to the Olympics....do we tally up 2nd and 3rd place finishes for comparison???? It seems so...un-American?  If we were to redo that chart above in gold medal order, we drop to 4th place, below Russia, Norway, and Canada.

Norway and Canada! Oh, that feels so bad! .... Not. These are the Winter Olympics, and those are all countries with Nordic climates and histories of winter excellence. It is really quite an accomplishment that the United States is even in that mix. That we had 9 Gold Medal athletes is commendable, and I am proud of each and every one of those athletes. There is pride too with the other 19 American medalists too. Heavens, I applaud every great athlete around the world for their intense training, their perseverance, their stamina, and all the other fine traits that make them able to compete athletically at the international level.

But let's not diminish the excellent work done by other athletes the world over. Norway is a country with a population of just over 5,000,000 people. That compares to Russia with 144,000,00 and the United States with 318,000,000 very favorably. 11 gold medals in Sochi 2014 for a population fractional to their bigger international opponents is quite an accomplishment. And I can't remember hearing the Norwegian National anthem once on my TV.

This is for you, Norway (and Great Job)

Cheers, nca