United States Exceptionalism!

[BruSan]

[quote=burdell;25615809]Americans did, in the pool, on the court, on the track, in the gym, etc.

Actions spoke louder than words once again.[/quote]


THIS

[russiaonline]

Originally Posted by g-vegas

We are exceptional and need to act as such.

The only thing exceptional about Americans, is their belief in being exceptional.

[txgolfer130]

Originally Posted by pknopp

Nobody bashed the athlete's over that. Quite ironic.

Fox Complains Gabby Douglas And Other American Olympians Not Showing Enough Patriotism - YouTube

Bashing because THEY think they're not shouting USA and not wearing "patriotic" uniforms.

When the U.S. Gov't. contributes $$ to the effort, THEN we can wonder why the uniforms aren't red/white/blue, yadda yadda yadda.

Only on FAUX NEWS.

[desertdetroiter]

Still waiting for some examples of apologizing for America in the era of Obama.

[HistorianDude]

Originally Posted by txgolfer130

Bashing because THEY think they're not shouting USA and not wearing "patriotic" uniforms.

That commentary actually made me sick.

[Redshadowz]

I saw some interesting things today about medal counts by population size. For instance, Great Britain has a population of only 62 million vs our 311 million, or about 1/5th. But got 65 medals vs our 104.

Which means the United States won about .33 medals for each one million people. While Great Britain won a little more than 1 medal per one million people. So Great Britain won medals at about three times the rate of the United States.

Another example is the Soviet Union. The last time the Soviet Union competed was in 1988, when it won 55 gold and 132 overall medals, to our 36 gold and 94 overall.

Soviet Union at the Olympics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1988 Summer Olympics medal table - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


One more thing. Of the 46 gold medals the United States won, 29 were by women and only 17 were by men. And of those 17 medals won by the men, almost a quarter were were attributable to Michael Phelps(he won four gold).

United States at the 2012 Summer Olympics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For comparison, China's men also won 17 gold medals(21 by their women)

China at the 2012 Summer Olympics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And even stranger statistic is, of Great Britain's 29 gold, 18 were by men(one more than the United States).

Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Olympics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Russia's men won 12 of their 24 gold's.


So if you were to further break down the olympics not only by population size, but make it into a man-only competition. Then Great Britain would have .29 gold medals per 1 million people, to our .055 gold medals per 1 million people. Basically, Great Britain would have been about 5.3 times better than us.


My point is, the fact that almost 2/3rd of the US gold medals were by women, could be interpreted a couple different ways.

Either it could be a testament to the extent of sex-equality in the United States, displaying the amount of opportunity for women in sports here. Or it shows the general lack of overall competition in women's sports, where most other countries simply don't even send women to compete.

Either way, it would seem to me, that the United States should eventually taper-off in terms of the medal counts by its women as the rest of the world develops. But, with its potential for population growth(we could feasibly sustain a higher population than China or India), its overall medal count might not be diminished over the long-term.


That is of course, if you believe the United States will continue to exist in the future.