Just a quick thought tonight.
Nations around the world sponsor training facilities and camps for their Olympic and potential Olympic athletes. True (well, with a few exceptions, such as Togo). However, there are some nations that certainly seem to pour significantly more resources than others into their national athletes. Not only money, but various nations, through the years and currently, have also sequestered large numbers of young people in athletic training camps.
A tremendous expense, of people and of money. And it pays off - to some extent, and for as long as the money flows. For what? National prestige? Now, I'm glad the U.S.A. wins medals. But I'm also glad that the U.S. gov doesn't take hundreds of children with promising genetic structure and house them in training camps for 15 or more years.
But this is really beside the point. Or, at least, beside the point I was originally thinking of.
My initial thought was this. Most nations draw their athletes from trials, at which the top athletes compete to represent their nation. These athletes could have chosen to follow another path, to do something else (or many somethings) with their 4-8 hours a day that they spent practicing, but instead they practiced. They love their sport.
Other nations - East Germany, Soviet Russia, China today, and others - draw their athletes from state-run training camps. These athletes have much less choice of pursuits.
When an athlete from the first group of nations wins a medal does it better represent the sporting spirit and pride of the national population or of the government? What about those athletes from the second group of nations?
Then ask yourself this. Why do nations feel the need to go to such extremes to clinch victory in sporting events? And, if they are willing to go this far for sports, how far will they go in other situations?
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