My olympic expectations

The summer olympics have been fun for me since I was a kid.  Back then, we always wanted to beat out the Soviet Union.  Freedom vs. tyranny and all that.  Nowadays, we pretty much just want to get the most medals.  However, I've learned over the years that other countries care more about the number of gold than they do the total medal count.  So much so that they list the countries in order by most golds, not by most overall medals.  I don't care for this very much and I'll tell you why.  It isn't because it takes the U.S. out of the top spot, although that does happen because we don't always win the most gold.  To me, it diminishes the spectacular accomplishment of the rest of the athletes, you know, those who don't win gold.  To make the olympic team is an astounding achievement in sports.  To compete against the best in the world and win a medal of any color is even more astounding.  By saying that only gold is important, you diminish those accomplishments and tell your athletes that silver and bronze aren't an impressive feat of skill.

At any rate, everyone wants their country to perform well.  Myself included.  In fact, having a multicultural family means I get to root for more than one country, although I admit that the United States always gets the edge.  This year, that means that I actually have a mens soccer team to root for though since the U.S. men, well...

So, what do I expect this year out of the summer olympics.  I expect a friendly crowd which will help the U.S. perform well.  Also, I expect 100 total medals.  This has become the norm for the United States.  In the last 5 summer olympics, the U.S. has gotten 100 or more medals 4 times and 94 medals the one time they didn't.  In the 6 olympics preceding those, the U.S. got 100 or more twice and 90 or more in the other 4.  Therefore, it has been a long time since we got less than 90 medals, since 1964.  1960 was the last time we didn't get 90 or more medals.  Of course, we did extremely well in Los Angeles in 1984 when we got 174 medals, but this was the year the Soviets boycotted because we had skipped out on the Moscow games in 1980, so Russia and much of the eastern bloc didn't participate.  Not to diminish that achievement, just explaining the outlier.

Therefore, I've come to expect that the U.S. will get 100 medals.  I'm sure most Americans feel this way.  In fact, anything less than 100 seems to be a disappointment.  Not that it should be, I'm just saying how I feel based on our historical performance.  That said, if we did anything less than 90 medals, I think many Americans would think that to be, not a disappointment, but a disaster.  I love sports and the atmosphere of the olympics...I even got to attend the 1996 olympics with my future wife.  So, I look forward to this event every 4 years.  I even like the winter olympics a lot, but I do wish NBC would figure out what people really want to watch.  At any rate, should I be disappointed if the U.S. does not perform as expected?  Absolutely not...after all, there is always four years from now when the U.S. team would use a poor showing as motivation.  However, what would really constitute a poor showing.  Not getting 100 medals?  Surely not, my personal bias aside.  Not getting 90 medals?  Since this hasn't happened since 1960, I'd say that would be considered a poor showing.  I look forward to the show this year in London.  It'll be fun.  I'm even more excited about 4 years from now, when Brazil will host the games for the first time and as the first South American country to do so.