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in recent summer games the US has loaded up early in swimming and gymnastics and then tailed off significantly during Track & Field, a section where we use to have much more success than we do now
Correct. The US used to dominate track and field, but the rise of the Jamaicans and others in the sprints, lack of attention focused on jumping and throwing events, and the total domination of the Africans in distance running has really taken away that dominance. The US still has good sprinters and some good jumpers T&F just isn't as high-profile in the US as professional team sports like American football, baseball, and basketball which lures away the bulk of the highest potential athletes with the promise of getting paid millions.
Seems like a silly stat there are a limited amount of openings for athletes to compete in.
Exactly. Many events limit entrants to two or three per country. This allows more spots to be allotted to a larger number of countries...which favors countries with a smaller population. In women's gymnastics, for example (a sport I follow closely), the US would have qualified three participants to the all-around, but was limited to two. In fact, they could potentially have qualified four or more.
Therefore it is extremely silly to criticize the number of American medals "per capita" unless one takes into full consideration that number of American athletes who would have qualified to compete for a medal, but were not permitted to.
USA = 318 million people (40 medals with 16 gold medals)
UK+Germany+France+Italy = 268 million people (54 medals with 18 gold medals)
Europ is and always will be the best !
This is a particularly egregious comparison. In an event in which two participants are allowed per country, the US gets two chances to win a medal, while "UK + Germany + France +Italy" get eight chances. Therefore one would expect those four countries grouped together to achieve four times the medal count of the US. They have more opportunity!
I'm not terribly invested in US medals. I'm impressed by top athletes from any country. But looking at the medal count and claiming "Europe is the best," as though Europe were a single country, is asinine.
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