The more I watch the games the more I see athletes from different countries competing for and representing other countries than their own and when I don’t see that, I hear from the commentators how an athlete was offered many millions of dollars to represent a different country but declined.

You too may have seen brazilian Beach Volleyball athletes representing Georgia, for instance, or many african runners representing European countries.

So what is wrong with that, you ask? Well, it’s bad enough that those well-fed super-star, multi-millionaire, professional  basketball, tennis, baseball, etc, players are allowed to compete in the games, thus shamelessly taking away some poor, hard-working, athlete’s dream. Now we are buying athletes to compete in the games we are not good at or, like big companies; instead of doing our own research & development, trial & error, expense & write-offs/disappointments, we simply purchase a sure win. Let some other poor country raise, take care, feed, train and support an athlete and then we move-in and purchase him/her to win us the prize.

At the end of the day, it’s the number of the medals that count, not the color or ethnicity of an athlete, right?

So with this in mind I predict that there will only be a handful of countries competing in the future Olympic games, to include, those with Petrol-Dollars or rich in any other natural-resource and those with lots of power, financially or physically.

That’s not so bad is it? Much less strain on the environment, for there will be no need for large buildings, arenas, accomodations, roads etc. Much lower security costs, as most of the countries and their hopefuls will deem it worthless to even attempt going against the superstars. Much less activists and citizens getting involved or displaced.

Win,win, win.  

We have all been made aware of the reasons behind the Gold medals won by the “super stars” by now; attributions such as, possessing a larger lung capacity, bigger pumps (hearts), or a better ability to deal with the lactic acid accumulation in the muscles. Of course, there are the non-physical reasons as well, such as the Chinese athletes’ total commitment to the motherland and China’s practice of enlisting their toddlers in camps and putting them through a rigorous training schedule which includes very little to no family or play-time.

There are even reports that some countries invest as much as $7 Million per Gold medal. That is something that not many countries can afford to do, nor can they afford to offer a citizenship + $1Million to entice the athletes of other countries to represent them. In fact, not all countries can even afford the latest attire. You know, the teflon-coated wear, or the ones that bead oil like duck’s feathers in order to reduce drag by repelling water. Of course I’m exaggerating a little, although I’m not sure but that it might actually be true; if not already, we will see such things at the next Olympic games. 

So with that aside, what makes one athlete win Gold (first place), or Silver (runner-up), and another finish in third place (Bronze), or fourth, fifth, sixth,etc.? I suppose we can attribute some of the poor performance by the athletes as being due to their succumbing to the pressure to win for the country that they represent, or perhaps they had physical issues on that particular day.

However, I am after a different scenario. What if there were no extra pressures, rewards, designer-outfits, or physical attributions than what is available to all of the athletes? By that I mean, what if the athletes were somehow all equal in every respect?

We already know that in many cases the difference between third, fourth, fifth place, etc. is only seconds to fractions of seconds. We know that all of the athletes worked extremely hard to get to China, and if that was not enough, they still had to manage to get to the finals.

So was there an outside force at play, that favored one athlete over an other? If so, why? I’m sure that I am not the only one questioning that today. There are hundreds of athletes that would love to know why they didn’t make it.

It would help them prepare for the next Olympics. Perhaps it could have saved them a lot of time and grief had they stayed home away from the stress and China’s pollution.