Much ado is made every Olympics about how countries fare in the final medal count. But nothing demonstrates US dominance in this respect quite like it winning a total of 2941 medals, including 1166 gold, between the 1896 Athens Olympics and these 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The Soviet Union and Russia combined is second with a total of 1751, including 669 gold; and, significantly, China is third with a total of 696, including 275 gold.
That’s why it was so intriguing to watch how the medal count unfolded during these Games. It began with China jumping out to such a surprising lead on Day 1 that I commented on a CNN report on July 24 as follows:
That China now trades with far more countries than the United States is a key indicator of its rise as a bona-fide superpower. But China contends that it, and not the United States, will be the superpower of the 21st century. Perhaps a key indicator of that is that China ended Day 1 of Olympic competition at the top of the medal tally with 4, while the United States languished at the bottom with 0.
Of course everyone expected the United States to recover form. But nobody expected it to be such an embarrassing grind that American media outlets would resort to Trumpian-style copy editing. They did this by listing countries in order based on total medals won instead of most gold medals won – as the IOC and practically every other international media outlet did … as usual.
But The New York Times was the notable exception in this case. This moved me to comment on its listing of the medal count on August 5 as follows:
Thanks for showing this version of the medal count … with China on top. It seems a lingering effect of Trumpism that, just as some in the American media cannot accept that Trump lost the presidency, some cannot accept that China is kicking America’s ass in the medal count.
Now that the Games are over, the final count reflects just how much the United States underperformed and, more to the point, how much China “overperformed”.
To be sure, the United States can finally boast that it is the legitimate winner of the medal count. Because, it won just enough on the very last day to top China by one (39-38) in the gold medal column! It ended with a total count of 113; China end with 88.
For a little perspective, though, it might help to recall that the United States won the medal count at the last Olympics in Rio with a total of 121 medals, including 46 gold; China was third with 71, and only 26 gold. So it would take Trumpian delusion or Chamberlainian naiveté to fail to see where this is heading.
All the same, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of America’s decline have been greatly exaggerated. China will become the quadrennial winner of the medal count in due course. Perhaps that’s why we are suddenly seeing reports in Western media diminishing its significance, notably one in the Washington Post on July 30 headlined “Olympic medals no longer show off nations’ cultural power,” and another in Deutsche Welle (DW) on August headlined “Time to Scrap Olympic medal table.”
Except that, whether it’s suddenly convenient for Westerners to scrap them or not, I suspect China will continue keeping score. Because totalitarian regimes have always seen international sports as a continuation of confrontational politics by other means. This is why their leaders have always sanctioned winning by any means necessary, including the state-sponsored doping Russia is notorious for executing to win the medal count at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
That said, I am convinced the United States will retain the title for a few quadrennials more. After all, apropos of underperforming, it’s hard to imagine another Olympics where the men on the US track and field team would fail to win a single individual gold medal.
But the women picked up the slack not just for the men in track and field. They did the same for the men in so many other sports that women accounted for 72 of Team USA’s 113 medals, including 23 of its 39 gold.
Still, I’d be remiss not to mention the failure of the celebrated US women’s soccer team to win gold. Their bronze medal was nothing to sneer at of course. But, listening to no less a person than former President Donald J. Trump heap scorn on their efforts, you’d never know this.
Yes, like everything else in American life, he made their Olympic performance all about him too. Specifically, this insurrectionist in chief became cheerleader in chief for the new hate-America faction of the Republican Party. As such, its members gloated deliriously when Canada knocked the United States out of gold-medal contention in their semifinal match.
Of course, this is the same sick SOB who infamously stood with Russian Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and threw the whole US intelligence community under the bus. So it’s hardly surprising that he would channel a 500-pound loser in a basement somewhere and troll the US women’s soccer team in this treasonous fashion.
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