Posted on 02/17/2014 10:04:23 AM PST by Reaganite Republican
While that hockey win over the Russians might have given us a nice morale lift the numbers don't lie- the Americans have unfortunately slipped to 7th place in overall medals at the 2014 Winter Games, this after a record-breaking dominance at Vancouver last go-round. We're all but mathematically eliminated from any kind of top finish already.
You knew we were in trouble from the minute they rolled-out those collegiate-grunge opening ceremony outfits that Ralph Lauren came up with... and what's up with Pee Wee Herman in the announcers' booth?
***ping***
“the Americans have unfortunately slipped to 7th place in overall medals at the 2014 Winter Games”
I’ve seen this statistic several times in the past day or two, and it’s simply not true. The USA is currently tied for the lead in medals won.
http://www.sochi2014.com/en/medals
Look at the bright side. If Putin hadn’t intimidated Baraq, we would have been watching 30 mins of the whole family every night in the stands at Sochi.
Whqat a load of horse crap. The Americans are tied for 5th in Gold metals and number one in overall medal production. obama has nothing to do with the performance of our athletes.
metals should be medals!
What a load of horse crap. The Americans are tied for 5th in Gold medals and number one in overall medal production. obama has nothing to do with the performance of our athletes.
Not many. After 1976, or 1980 there were a lot of kids who dreamed of Olympic gold. Today? Whatever, dude.
I agree. I keep seeing us tied for second in total medal count yesterday and these article titles make me scratch my head.
Well, I hope the athletes are proud of themselves, now that they let Obama down. /sarc
Seriously, what does Obama have to do with how Olympic athletes perform? Do you think the U.S. delegation doesn’t want to win. And what is a “weirdo?” Is it someone that looks differently than you do? I may be an old ranch hand, but I’m through assigning blame where no exists or judging a person’s character based on how they wear there hair.
The Ralph Lauren outfits made our team look like the extras in a hip hop video. They cast our team as losers before they even got to the games.
The 2014 games have a similar feel of a lot of things in this country today... we’re slipping, while many are focused on things other than results.
As for the athletes themselves you’re largely correct, yet imho this vile regime had deflated morale across-the-board, as few are prouder to be an American now than they where before 2008... except Moo-chelle maybe.
This Winter Olympics is an embarrassment, not least of which is caused by trying to run winter sports at a subtropical summer resort and the man presiding over the thing is an autocrat who imprisons his enemies. But our embarrassment, Barry Obama, really doesn’t have anything to do with this mess. I’m just glad I don’t have to watch him taking selfies there.
The only real difference that I see is the speed skaters’ uniforms seem to be designed as if the skaters are in drag rather than wishing to minimize drag.
For one thing, the U.S. hasn't been a dominant player in the Winter Olympics in decades. Yes, I know the author correctly describes a "record-setting performance" at Vancouver in 2010. But for the purpose of this discussion let's eliminate all of the stupid events that were imported from the "X-Games" and the ones that look like they were made up a week before the Olympics began. The U.S. dominated many these events in the past because most other countries that dominated the traditional Winter Olympics events barely competed in things like snowboarding, aerial skiing, and short-track speed skating.
When was the last time the U.S. had a dominant speed skater, a great Alpine skier, or event a competitive ski jumper? Was Eddie the Eagle the best we could do? LOL.
On a whim, I googled “how many US Olympic athletes are on food stamps?”
I say many entries for this or that competitor, and I saw some entries about novel funding, e.g., establishing a ‘crowd-funding’ beg site on the internet. Saw lots of examples.
Not many that mentioned a ‘job’ is how they supported themselves and trained.
The spirit is gone.
There ate three intertwined things at work.
1: you have a president that wants to reduce America’s ‘exceptionalism’ in the world. He stated such and has proven the intent through any number of actions. He is supported by...
2: the Media who shares his distaste for all things traditionally American. Likewise, they work to make sure the world sees America as just one more country no better than any other. They are successful because they are dealing with...
3: Athletes whose entire careers began with coaches telling them that winning was not the primary goal of competition. Participation was. And so, as we see with the repeated outbursts from the American atheletes, when they didn’t get their trophy...even though they participated...they had a hissy fit.
Now if Phil and Steve Mahre or Eric Heiden or any of the other 1980 era athletes would have behaved in the manner these sad excuses for Americans have, the rest of the olympic team would have come down on them like a landslide.
But today, exceptionalism is frowned upon from the top down.
I tend to agree, however, here’s where I think the point is accurate - we, as a nation, have lost our edge. We are no longer about excelling above and beyond limits and expectations. Our military has been made into a social experiment. Our schools no longer teach American exceptionalism and respect for the Founding Fathers. Our workers, instead of being grateful that they have jobs, look at their places of employement as slave camps where they are forced to toil away for nothing. We are now a country that celebrates laziness and rewards sloth. These kinds of things cannot go on for long before they have an effect on our collective psyche. I have had this thought more than once during this Olympics. How else do we go from 37 medals total in Vancouver to so few now? I know there are still some medals out there for us, but we’re going to be nowhere close to the Vancouver numbers (we’re 8 medals behind where we were then at the same point). Look at the reaction when we don’t win - it’s not an introspective look at what “I” did wrong, but instead it’s about the suits, or the halfpipe, or some other external issue that we aren’t responsible for.
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