Reason #47 China Will Rule the 21st Century- The Olympics

I'm a big supporter of these United States of America. I may not own an American flag, serve in the military or speak with a Southern accent, but I think the U.S.A. is a great place to live. I mean, come on, in America we like our starlets young (and underage...in chronological order...1, 2, 3) and our phenoms even younger (in order from most to least justified 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 763, TBD). Personally, I think Latarian will do more hood rat stuff with his friends than anyone in history. Watch out, Tiger. Anyway, the United States is a place where we like our burgers colossal and devote entire shows to gluttony. We like our wrestling fake and our national past time faker (in no particular order 1, 2, 3). And we like our cars big and our stars bigger. I use the term 'star' loosely.

Because of all of these inherent truths, and maybe those mentioned in the Declaration of Independence as well, the United States was the leading global power over the course of the 20th century. For those keeping score at home we recorded an 11th round KO of Russia/USSR when it became obvious in the 1990s that the Soviet Union had been in the process of a massive internal collapse for a number of years. I happen to think the deciding blow was delivered around...1980 or so (fewest goosebumps to most 3, 2, 1). So while it's true that the U.S.A. has left Russia in the dust thus far in the 21st century, a new nation has emerged to challenge America for global supremacy. That nation is China. And while I love America, all signs point to another Chinese Revolution (hopefully with less Mao and more Yao this time). And in recognition of the impending ascension of the Chinese, I have decided to introduce the first ongoing (meaning there will be at least two of these) segment to this blog. It will be totally subjective, non-scientific and (probably) offensive. So without further ado...(see title of post).

The Greeks established the Ancient Olympic Games nearly three thousand years ago in 776 B.C. These games originated before the Romans went nuts on the rest of Europe...and some of Asia...and most of northern Africa...so at this time the Greeks had the freedom to lay the foundation for Western civilization and...do some other stuff, too. And the Greeks established a precedent that holds true three thousand years later, that the superpowers around the world win the most Olympic medals. The United States won the most medals in the four Olympics following World War I (the Olympics before WWI were dominated by host countries due to the greater difficulty in traveling in the early 20th century) but Germany easily won the most medals in the 1936 Berlin games (the exclusion of Jesse Owens from the master race probably rates behind the invasion of Russia but ahead of facial hair choices and the decision to fight Jesus on Hitler's list of mistakes). America came back from WWII atop the medal charts but the USSR slowly closed the gap before accumulating the most medals in 1972. We would regain the medal lead after the conclusion of the Cold War (excluding the Soviet-boycotted 1980 Los Angeles games) and looked like a good bet to maintain our position for the foreseeable future. Throughout this period the medal tables have fairly accurately reflected influence and power in the real world, as Japan and various European countries consistently rounded out the top ten of the medal charts. It was not until 1992 that a new nation emerged with a significant medal total. Enter China, stage right. Far right. (Far East). Get it? Theatre and geography?! Let this blog take its' rightful place alongside Bill Nye, Magic School Bus and Sesame Street in the pantheon of educational entertainment.

NOTE: Dear God, Kobe. You may speak fluent Italian but your European influences clearly do not extend to Pavarotti.

Let's get onto the bad news. China has already overtaken the U.S.A. in the medal count for the Paralympic (not Special Olympics) games. And it's not close. I know. Devastating. Since being introduced during the 1960 Olympics in Rome, the United States had dominated every Paralympic Games from 1964 through 1996, finishing with the most medals every year during that stretch. But our reign came to an end in 2000 during the Sydney games. Australia captured forty more total medals (27 more golds) and we finished third in the medal count (fifth in golds). And that was just a precursor to 2004 and 2008. We managed a combined 187 medals (63 golds) during the past two games while China accumulated 352 medals (152 gold). These numbers are overwhelming but I'm here to rationalize that seemingly damning difference away. It's a simple fact that you cannot put too much stock into disabled games that allowed a fully-abled Spanish basketball team into the competition. My biggest problem with this? The Spanish only won the final 87-63! They had to be the worst collection of ringers since the "Homer at the Bat" episode of The Simpsons, in which eight of the nine MLB guest stars miss the championship softball game completely due to various, hilarious reasons (one of best episodes ever). Now that I've completely lost my train of thought let's just move onto the good news...

We had more total medals than China in 2008 despite the Beijing location (host countries see sizable jumps in their medal counts). Back to the bad news...

China had 51 gold medals in Beijing. That is fifteen golds more than the United States and that total alone would have been good for third in the medal table (Great Britain had the fourth most medals with 47). America only bested the Chinese by ten total medals despite the top five American athletes taking home 27 medals (no Chinese athlete had more than three). Take away Michael Phelps, his bong and his Olympian behavior and China vs. U.S.A. is a virtual dead heat. Further take away Shawn Johnson's substantial thighs and China takes the top spot. It seems only a matter of time before China's athletic factories (1, 2, 3) churn out comparable superstars.

China has shown dramatic improvement over the past fifteen years and that upward trend is unlikely to change. The Chinese government will force the best Chinese athletes into laborious training regimens and won't tolerate non-participation from medal hopefuls. The current structure established in the sports of gymnastics, weightlifting and badminton/table tennis will soon extend to swimming, basketball, judo and who knows what else. The Chinese will be able to imitate the former U.S.S.R. because of a massive population and similar government involvement, structure and funding. We may retain the number one position in the overall medal count in the 2012 London games (not on American soil but at least everyone speaks English...or something resembling English), it will be a long, long time before we capture the most golds at the Summer Olympic. Look for the Chinese to wrest away the overall medal tally in 2016 (at the latest) in Rio de Janeiro and not relinquish that top spot for quite a while. With Olympic domination on the horizon, can world domination be too far behind? I think not. Narf!

Coming up next time...Reason #31 China Will Rule the 21st Century- American Popular Music...