2012 Olympics

You seem to be missing Bluegenes point that for your size the amount of 'winning' you are doing isn't all that great.

Unless you are suggesting that the US had a load of athletes sitting at home who could have beaten the rest of the world if only they had been at the London Olympics I’m not sure how having a bigger team would have helped you.If the entire population of America had taken part and the US team had consisted of 300 million people I still don’t see how this would have made any difference to the eventual winners of individual events.

So you are saying that the US had a load of elite level olympic athletes (that could have beaten the medalists of other countries if they had been there) sitting at home? Do you think that the reason the US didn't do the "size equivalent of Britain" that Bluegenes talks about was because it didn't send as many athletes as it had available?Surely, in terms of medal winning, the issue is how good the athletes are rather than how many you send? Lets say that the US can enter 4 hockey teams and all the other countries can enter just one. How does this change which country has the best team?Men's Hockey Results
Germany - Gold
Netherlands - Silver
Australia - Bronze
(Britain came 4th losing to Aus in the bronze medal playoff)I still don't see how the US having 4 inferior teams somehow gets it a medal here? Please explain.

The US came 5th in Olympic wrestling. The very best US wrestlers weren’t as good as those from other countries so the claim that the second tier US wrestlers would have mopped up the remaining medal positions away from other countries seems a bit optimistic to me. But lets say our hypothetical extended US team gets a couple more in the wrestling. And basketball I will give the hypothetical extended US team all three medal positions in.It still doesn’t really equate to a dynamic per-capita performance does it?Any more US medal winners sitting at home because there wasn’t room on the plane?

Look I could get as many pub football teams together as is humanly possible and I can pretty much guarantee that the only way any of them will beat the Spanish national football team is by causing the Spaniards to fall apart laughing.The idea that simply turning up in numbers equates to sporting success by virtue of statistics is silly. Of course. Because both are evenly matched enough to make that the case. But some teams are better than others and the better teams win more matches overall.If this wasn't the case there wouldn't be any point in all that training and improving that goes on would there.......? Sure in a few cases a nation might have such a wealth of talent in one discipline that a truly world class performer gets left out because only one or two are allowed to compete per nation.But I seriously question the idea that the US had this mass of world class athletes sitting at home who would have won the medals that other countries won if the US team had been larger. That is just nonsense.Aside from basketball what disciplines could the US reserve team beat all other nations at?

My point is that simply throwing numbers at an event isn’t how medals are won. Getting medals at an event requires being good at that event, Specifically it involves being better than the other competitors from other nations also competing in that event at that point in time.If the US wants to win the 100 metres gold medal then entering 300 million Americans in the US sprint team and saying Well we have maximised our statistical chances of winning isn’t the way to go. The way to win the 100 metre sprint gold medal is (in the short term) to persuade Usain Bolt to change nationality or (in the long term) to find and train someone who can run even more ridiculously fast than he can.It is you who seems to be making the rather bizarre claim that just entering lots of people (or teams) in an event is some sort of statistical route to success because actually being good at that event doesn’t really count for much in terms of winning. This is patently not how competitive sport works.

I am not saying that the restrictions make no difference at all to any country or any event. I am saying that the idea that the US specifically is being woefully disadvantaged in terms of per-capita medal position because it has a huge swathe of world beating athletes sitting at home as a result of those pesky restrictions just doesn't appear to be true.They presumably sent the best they have and they got the medal tally they got. Would sending the second tier of athletes as well really have elevated them to a significantly better per-capita position? I am essentially agreeing with Bluegens analysis above. That is what I am referring to here when disputing those (Oni and Caf) who seem to be arguing that the US specifically is somehow at a great disadvantage because of the participation limitations in individual events.

Winning a medal for a nation in an event is about having one of the best three competitors in that event in the competition at that point. This is dependent on a number of factors. The wealth of the nation certainly seems relevant. The "sporting culture" is being put forward as a point of discussion. And the pool of people to pick your competitors from obviously is of significant consequence.But that is very different to the idea that simply turning up in numbers is some sort of route to sporting success in the way that Caf suggested. It is the quality of athletes representing a nation rather than how many of them that will ultimately determine medal count.If Kiribati (population 100,000) had entered a 1000 athletes it still almost certainly wouldn't have won any Olympic medals would it? Sure. So my question to both you and him is this - Do you really think that the inclusion of a bunch of second tier US athletes would have sent the US medal tally rocketing up the per-capita medal table?If not - What is your point?

Sure. It is for this reason that I think many have reservations about team-ball sports in particular being included in the Olympics. Sure. A bit. As would China, Russia etc. But those who are putting this forward as the reason for the relatively low US per-capita position are fooling themselves.The question posed is about the culture of sport in the US and what (if anything) the US medal tally tells us about that. Those blathering on about the exclusion of second tier wrestlers and suchlike as some sort of reason for the US per-capita position are missing the point Bluegenes is making IMHO.

And my point is that the number of entrants is almost entirely irrelevant compared to the quality of entrants. No amount of additional team members will make any difference to medal haul unless those additional members are of sufficient quality to make a difference to the result. Quality of competitor not number of competitors in a particular event is what counts in Olympic medal terms. Like I said above - Kiribati (population 100,000) could be allowed an Olympic team 4 times the size of everyone else's and still not expect a single medal. Why? Because the number of entrants allowed per team is of little consequence when the population from which it is picked is so small. OK. If you don't think that that the inclusion of a bunch of second tier US athletes would have sent the US medal tally rocketing up the per-capita medal table either then why are you disagreeing with me rather than Oni?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Indeed!! So does this provide us with an answer to the qustion: "Is the U.S.A. a top sporting culture?"

I don't think anyone is insisting on "strict per capita standards". The point being made is that there are a number of factors which contribute to national sporting success (specifically Olympic medal success in this thread). Wealth is a factor. Population is a factor. And the point under discussion is the factor being called "sporting culture" (whatever exactly we mean by that).Given it's population and wealth the US isn't performing particularly impressively. Unless this can be significantly attributed to participation restrictions (which you don't seem to think it can) this leaves "sporting culture" or some as yet unraised factor as the reason for this.So I am not denying that the entry of three US basketball teams or the addition or of a wrestler here or there might up the US medal tally by a bit. What I am disputing is that this has any significant bearing on the per capita performance and the question being asked "Is the U.S.A. a top sporting culture?"That others have seized upon participation restrictions seems to me to be a way of avoiding considering the factors that genuinely matter. Medal counts are probably not a very reliable measure of "sporting culture" (which I think we probably need to define at least somewhat in order to answer questions about it) anyway. Britain is still basking in the glow of what has collectively been deemed a successful medal haul but as a nation we are increasingly going down the American lifestyle route of cars, malls and ever more sedentary lifestyles. I'm not sure that is symptomatic of or conducive to a "top sporting culture" whatever Olympic medals have been won recently.

Given that wealth and population size seem to be the overriding factors in determining Olympic medal success the US coming top seems to be about par for the course (just to throw in some alternative sporting parlance)

The "poor loser talk" was being applied as much to the UK as the US. Read what Bluegenes wrote as the reason for raising these issues:

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So, why mention all this? I get the impression from looking at the American media that many Americans won't realise that the U.S. performance was actually below average to "first world" (wealthy country) standards. (Also, to Eastern European standards). What the 104 medals tell you is what you already know: that you are by far the largest of the world's wealthy countries. But if you want to measure the "culture" aspect you are (like the U.K. - the last two Olympics were exceptions, not the rule!) pretty ordinary.

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With all the excessive flag waving that's been going on here in the U.K., it's a good idea to bring Brits down to earth by pointing out that we only came about 21st, not 3rd or 4th, when population size is taken into account.

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Message 111It's a reality check.

From the Newsroom:"And you, Sorority Girl, just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there’s some things you should know. One of them is there’s absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re seventh in literacy. Twenty-seventh in math. Twenty-second in science. Forty-ninth in life expectancy. A hundred and seventy-eighth in infant mortality. Third in median household income. Number four in labor force and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies.

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Now none of this is the fault of a twenty-year-old college student, but you nonetheless are without a doubt a member of the worst, period, generation, period, ever, period. So when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I dunno what the fuck you’re talkin’ about. Yosemite?