Russian Olympians from America?
I have to admit, I prefer the Summer Games. Outside of a couple of events, I’m not really interested in “winter” sports. Luckily, NBC doesn’t have any good shows even when the Olympics are not taking up 23 hours of programming per day, so it’s an easy network to ignore. During the segments I’ve watched over the last week or so, I’ve noticed something interesting. It seems like this generation of Olympians all train in the United States. No, not just the athletes representing the U.S., but almost all of the athletes, regardless of the country they are representing.
Now, maybe I’m old school in this way, but I thought the Olympics were all about Us vs. Them. The one time every couple of years that we put aside all this world economy stuff, and set out to prove that our athletes are better, our facilities are better, and our way of doing things is better. Right? I mean, that’s what I grew up thinking, and not just because I watched Rocky IV a few hundred times. Ivan Drago my ass.
But…how does that work if everybody is training over here? Are they pretty much admitting that we have the best of everything? Did we lure the best coaches from all around the world? Or maybe they just like living here? So, what is it that they are representing? A place where they were born? A place with inferior facilities and methods? Because let’s face it, great athletes are often separated by very small margins, and those margins are often created by superior facilities and methods.
We already have competitions to determine the best athletes from the United States. You can compete in those every year. Why wait for the Olympics?
