The Olympics - Printable Version

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Re: The Olympics - The Horrible Esthete - 08-26-2008

skippy the wonder dog Wrote:Oh, please. Pull your head out of the sand.

You're glad to accept that the US has an effective athletics system that produces top athletes, and that the US is able to outperform other nations with similar and greater population at the Olympics -- until someone suggests that demonstrating the ability to do so is the aim of the system.

Then you start writing bullshit about bake sales -- because it suits you, ideologically, to pretend that there is no system and that the lack of a system, in fact, is what produces the superior results. Which, incidentally, is exactly what the system aims to demonstrate.

The fact that there is no single entity directing the US amateur athletics system does not mean that a system does not exist and that the system doesn't have goals or aims. Hold all the bake sales you want -- success at the Olympics is the product of serious money. Money for infrastructure, for example -- swimming pools and track stadiums don't build themselves. That money comes from players who are investing in ... what? Money for endorsements. That money is available ... why?

Well, because athletes are role models and heroes, right? And they're role models and heroes ... why?

Come down to the root of things, and there's only one answer.

It really sounds like you have little to no grasp of the amateur sports landscape in the United States.

Of course it takes serious money to succeed at the Olympics. But what you obviously do not understand is that a GIANT percentage of this money is spent at the community level and would continue to be spent if the Olympics would cease to exist TODAY.

I never said, nor do I believe, that "the lack of a system, in fact, is what produces the superior results". There may be something one could call a "system", but what you do not grasp is that the purpose for the "system" in this country is not "the Olympics".

It is the popularity and accessibility of athletics here, and the wide establishment of league competition at all levels for all ages that yields inevitable Olympic success, not the other way around.

If the Olympics were to cease to exist, do you really think all the existing community swimming pools and stadiums would be torn down in this country? Do you think new ones would no longer be built? Do you think the funding for youth, high school, and collegiate sports would evaporate?

Would they stop playing hockey in Canada?

Yeah. Right. cratch:

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Re: The Olympics - NegPhil - 08-26-2008

Your quaint concepts of an American Olympic program are sweet. :lol:
The American athletes no longer represent our country they represent our corporations. Name an American Olympian and I'll name their owner, sorry, sponsor.




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[youtube]JD8S3YEc5So[/youtube]

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Re: The Olympics - skippy the wonder dog - 08-26-2008

The Horrible Esthete Wrote:If the Olympics were to cease to exist, do you really think all the existing community swimming pools and stadiums would be torn down in this country? Do you think new ones would no longer be built? Do you think the funding for youth, high school, and collegiate sports would evaporate?

Funding would decrease significantly in the absence of that major television event, which occurs every four years.

You might want to compare funding levels (if you can find the data) for Olympic sports which receive TV coverage vice those that do not. Or just ask the national federations for those that don't get coverage whether they think coverage is important.

Esthete Wrote:Would they stop playing hockey in Canada?

Hockey has the NHL; it doesn't need the Olympics. If professional hockey disappeared, people would still play hockey. But there would be less money for arenas and lower levels of participation, guaranteed.

In any case, that's the usual straw man: I didn't say there would be no amateur sport without the Olympics and nationalism; I said that American Olympic success is the product of nationalism. These are two different propositions.

The problem here is that you're arguing proximate causes, and I'm talking about ultimate causes. IOC rhetoric aside, the Olympics have always ultimately been about nationalism. I'm arguing that US success at the Olympics is ultimately the payoff of Cold War nationalism.

Your objection to that is very much a matter of arguing that the US system, with its ideological component re govt participation, is inherently superior, no matter how you may protest otherwise. We're not trying, you proclaim; we're just naturally good.

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