Pascal wrote:Sure the Olympic games are cool, the athletes who display their skills there are truly amazing, but I've always felt it a sham that nations declare the victories their own - such as the US declaring "It" "earned" XYZ gold medals.
Because...wait. So by your logic no one should be able to root for their home team in sports games. In fact, that makes even LESS sense because at least the USA athletes are actually FROM the USA for the most part, whereas in other sports, the people on the team could be from any other city or state, they're just playing for that team. Meaning that cheering for the Baltimore Ravens isn't even cheering for the "good ol' boys" because most of them probably never even lived in Maryland.
Hmm. I wonder if people kind of like to have pride in where they live? That would just be a silly assumption to make, though!
If each nation had the same random population samples to draw from and each supported the same number of athletes, maybe... but when I look at the sports parade from any other country and then compare it to the US, it's as though we put up our own private army to compete. On top of it all, we have a large pseudo-wealthy population that allows us to be far more picky then any other country. So in the end, it's not really fair.
Oh my God! You mean...life...isn't fair? BUT LIFE IS ALWAYS FAIR! NOBODY HAS EVER LIVED AN UNFAIR LIFE BEFORE!
Oh yeah I fail to see how your statements account for the fact that Kenya dominates all running events. And Kenya doesn't really have a pseudo-wealthy population! WHOOPS! I guess your theory is unsound!
So overall, I think the flags of each nation should be forfeit and the Olympics should only be about athletes and not nations.
And you know what would happen? The people living in the US would say, "HEY LOOK THE ATHLETES THAT ARE WINNING ARE MOSTLY FROM THE USA HA HA WHY AREN'T THE ITALIANS WINNING AS MANY MEDALS AS OUR ATHLETES?" so absolutely nothing would change! It would be entirely pointless.
Oh yeah, and as far as countries being represented instead of individual athletes? That's how the ancient Greeks did it too. In fact, the Greeks placed EVEN MORE importance on the city-states the athletes came from than the current Olympics do regarding countries. This is mostly because the ancient Olympics were a whole lot more than just an athletic competition, but that doesn't change the fact this is how it has always been.
and cap the max number of entrants- in which case we'd be lucky if people from the US didn't fall over from one too many big macs X_x).
