This
Olympics (2016) Americans Brianna Rollins, Nia Ali and Kristi Castlin
became the first athletes from the same country to take all three
medals in the same event. As of this morning (Saturday 20 August),
the USA leads the gold medal count with 38. Great Britain follows
with 25, and China with 22. By far the largest country in the world,
for China to be third and sandwiched between the rest of the
traditional Western powers is an interesting feat indeed. Old
Communist China has done some serious catching up.
Anecdotal
evidence has it that
in 1978 Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew invited Senior
Vice-Premier of the People's Republic of China, Deng Xiaoping
for a visit. Deng, it is said, was so taken with the advances the
little steamy-sleepy island had made since its independence from
Britain, that it was when he returned to China that the
transformation of the giant nation began.
After
the battering the Chinese had taken from the British, French, Dutch,
Americans, Japan and Mao's (in the end) misguided communist
unification ideals, China had a lot of work to do. Over 80% of its
960 million were classified as poor,i
making do on one tenth of a hectare in the rural areas. They had a
nation to uplift, and a mark to make in the sporting world.ii
Meanwhile,
between 1941 and 1946, the US had become the war materials factory of
the world, allowing it to emerge as the most powerful military and
money force. Russia (the
actual winner of the war in Europe, but at the cost of over 20
million dead)
and Chinaiii
(the US’s most strategic partner in the east), come out broken
losers, never to be recompensed or even assisted by the West.
In
1948 the Chinese team had to borrow money to get home.iv
China’s invite to the ’52 games arrived two days before the start
and in the days of prop-engine planes they couldn’t get there on
time. On the US’s demand only Taiwan were invited in '56.
China
didn't compete again until 1984, where they
would win 15 gold medals. The USA took 83.
The Cost Of A Medal
All
through the Cold War, the US's Olympians had a huge advantage through
their sports scholarships. At a time when the games were strictly
amateur, athletes were able to train without the inconvenience of
having to work for a living.v
In
that vein Hungary had an amazing 1952 Olympics hauling in 16 golds.
The secret? They were given higher food allowances, longer vacations
for training purposes, cash rewards for breaking new records and
customs officials made only the most cursory examination of their
luggage when they returned from contests abroad. Being an athlete was
a privileged position.
In
1996 Britain won one solitary gold. The following year, National
Lottery funding was injected directly into elite Olympic sports for
the first time. The return was instant. In the Sydney Games of 2000,
the British team won 11 golds. In the lead-up to Beijing, from a
£235m investment in training programs, the injection of an extra
£165m saw 17 more medals. ‘That's about £10m a medal’ said
sports economist Prof David Forrest. 60% comes from the National
Lottery (and) ‘almost 40% comes directly … from our pockets via
taxes.’vi
‘UK
Sport … has pledged almost £350m to Olympic and Paralympic sports
between 2013 and 2017, up 11% on the run-up to London 2012,' reported
the Guardian. It calculates each Rio medal has cost £5.5mvii,
or 47 million Chinese Yuan. The methodology is simple. ‘Sports that
have propelled Britain up the medal table have received extra
investment while others have had their funding cut altogether.’
Mineral
wealthy Australia’s support for the Olympics is huge. ‘If the
Australian Olympic Committee’s official forecast of 37 medals for
the Rio campaign proves correct, every medal draped around an
Australian will come with a $9.2m price tag’, or $340 million of
taxpayer money.viii
Nowadays,
the US Olympic Committee has created athlete employment programs that
offer some support and employment opportunities.ix
Support comes in the form of advances made from the GI Billx,
employment in armed forces reserves, staying on at university, and
the big one; getting sponsored by one of the world’s biggest
corporations (though it is true that few get to the US$55 million
worth level of Phelps).
The
corporates are well aware of (to use John Davis’ book title) ‘The
Olympic Games Effect: How Sports Marketing Builds Strong Brands’.
They know the Olympics isn’t just a one-off event but a complete
story book. That’s why, for example, NBC paid US$1.2 billion for
the Rio rights and have already paid US$1.4 billion for 2020 … add
in the Winter games and both are over two billion dollars.
15%
of all Olympic medals ever awarded have been won by the US, with
European countries accounting for 60%. This despite consolidated
Europe and America (nearly all ex-colonists) accounting for only 1.1
billion (or around 1/7th)
of the world’s population. China has 1.4 billionxi
split into 34 provinces (compared to Europe’s 50 countries), of
which about 650 million are still rural bound peasants.
What It Really Takes
Olympic
dominance is all about wealth. ‘The US is rich. … the countries
that are tops in GDP tend to rise to the top of the medal count,'
says Justin Petersxii.
From
an athletic point of view, the USA’s success comes down to swimming
and track and field. More than half of America’s medals this year
(and counting) - 31 in swimming, 29 in track and field - came from
those two sports. Since the modern Olympics began, the USA has won
520 swimming medals - 342 more than its closest competitor,
Australia.
‘When
it comes to nurturing and training top-level swimmers, America is the
best nation in the world. Elite swimmers here come up through a
network of private swim clubs and matriculate at top college
programs. USA Swimming, the group that oversees America’s Olympic
swimmers, is well-organized and well-funded—it pays athletes
$75,000 for each gold medal, plus an extra $50,000 for setting a new
world record,’ said Peters.
The
gap between the Americans and the rest would be even higher if their
facilities and coaches weren’t used by the rest.
A Better Plan?
Until
1936 the Olympics were modest affairsxiii
at which those who could afford participated. Then they became
political, show pieces as important as the race into outer space, and
nowadays to prove economic worthiness. It is true China has spent
phenomenal amounts of money to develop both sportsmen and women and
facilities.
A
first tranche came in the build up to 1988 when some US$260m was
pumped in (China managed 5 golds then). Then came the spectacular and
hugely expensive show piece, the 2008 Beijing Olympics, to show the
world China had not only emerged but was to date the most successful
mixed economy ever.
The
label ‘communist’ was destroyed in all but the mind and
presentations of the corporate owned Western media and its billion
plus European audience. Even so the amount spent per person in China
is a fraction of that pushed into its athletes by the West.
The
reason is China is planning long-term. The upliftment and education
of all of its people are the priorities for its ‘spare’ money.
China’s
new found wealth, accumulated by doing all the West’s dirty
production work, hasn’t been pumped into Olympic glory.
In
1995, where Australia’s GDP per person was around USD 20,300 and
the UK USD 29,000, China’s GDP was USD 600. In the following 20
years that grew to USD 6,700 (2013).xiv
Over a 30 year period, beginning in 1980/81, China pulled nearly 700
million people out of poverty and reduced extreme poverty to 10%.
'And the work continues,' was the announcement last year by President
XI Jinping.xv
Education
in China at both school and university level has shown phenomenal
growth. Germany’s train system is a Chinese export
(a study in the pupil
becoming the teacher),xvi
and their space research is plumbing phenomenal depths. The country
plans to mine the moon for its large deposits of Helium-3, a rare
substance that can give enough power for 10,000 years, a radical
solution to global warming. China is so involved in European research
that the ESA head called for 'space without borders' during his first
China visit.’xvii
Even more amazing is that even with all of the growth, China’s (and
neighbour India's) ecological foot printxviii
remains a third of the US.
‘China,
in particular, has invested substantially in renewable energy, and
its decades-long focus on reducing fertility has also helped preserve
its bio-capacity per person.’ All the while the US still leads the
world with over 17 carbon dioxide units emitted per person - the UK
are at 7.92 and China at a lowly 6.52.xix
Trailing Second
And
while the world has been changing, many reports indicate the US isn’t
investing in all of its people.
Corporate profits are
going up, the trickle down economy has been a failure, its public
school system is slowly disintegrating and higher education is mired
in debt.
Recent
statistics show the number of people living in high-poverty areas
(defined as census tracts where 40 percent or more of families have
income levels below the federal poverty threshold) has nearly doubled
between 2000 and 2013 (to 13.8 million). That’s the highest number
of Americans living in high-poverty neighborhoods ever recorded.xx
In
the UK the Guardian reports ‘the 50% rise in families receiving
working tax credits since 2003 reflects the 20% increase in the
working poor.’xxi
The situation has gone so far backwards that ‘… every day, people
in the UK go hungry for reasons ranging from unexpectedly large bills
on a low income, to static incomes and redundancy. As a result, the
Trussell Trust, the biggest provider of food banks in Britain, has
seen the number of people using its service soar from 40,898 in
2009/10, to 913,138 in 2013/14.’xxii
The
wider European community isn’t immune either. Indeed in Paris,
France’s wealthiest enclave, the situation is amplified with
strikes and clashes with police getting more serious by the day. Out
of the region’s 12 million people ‘a full 15 percent survive on
less than €990 ($1,130) a month - and half of these people have
less than €750.’xxiii
Spain (national debt EU$1,058,709,869,081) and Italy (real
unemployment at about 26% as measured in 2012xxiv)
are worse, but both have enough to spend on a few to show they can
win gold.
At
the same time the wealth that does exist in these areas is based on
having introduced the most horrific conditions into (among others and
only looking at North Africa and the Middle East) Libya, Tunisia,
Egypt, Palestine, Syria, the Sudan and Ethiopia, Iraq, Afghanistan
and Iran - resulting in the wave of refugees that is now
destabilising these Western powers.
Somehow
the West can hide its embarrassment, have the IOC allow a Refugee
Team to compete and have the media successfully blow the phenomenon
into a success story - completely ignoring the millions the main
medal winners and principal war making allies Israel and Saudi Arabia
have killed, maimed, raped and left for dead all over the world in
the name of money. The same money that is used to project national
honours in the form of gold, silver and bronze.
The
second, hugely bigger refugee wave is due soon as some of the world’s
poorest and biggest by population find their countries too hot and
unable to produce food or water. For them the only escape route is
Europe. It's then that the competition, a deadly one, will start.
Beginning
with the Reagan and Thatcher era, while China has been pulling people
out of poverty, the reverse is true in the US. Except for Tibet,
China has never invaded anybody. True it has now begun a process of
economic invasion, but where the US offers debt through the IMF,
World Bank and its banks with fiat money,xxv
China pays cash.
There
are numerous reports circulating of the extreme conditions under
which China selects, trains and presents her athletes. Once in the
stream to be trained for an Olympic medal all else is forgone –
family and formal education included. I don’t have a problem with
that. They amount to a few hundred and China has signed up to fight a
war against poverty. Today, I believe that's important.
ii'Since
initiating market reforms in 1978, China has shifted from a
centrally-planned to a market-based economy and has experienced
rapid economic and social development. GDP growth has averaged
nearly 10 percent a year—the fastest sustained expansion by a
major economy in history—and has lifted more than 800 million
people out of poverty.' ... World Bank
at http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/overview
Forgotten ally? China's unsung role in
World War II …
www.cnn.com/2015/08/31/opinions/china-wwii-forgotten-ally-rana-mitter/
… China lost 14 million people in World War II
http://www.china.org.cn/english/olympic/211765.htm
v
‘Amazing & Extraordinary Facts - The Olympics’ by Stephen
Halliday and see ‘Free Money for Athletic Scholarships’ by
Laurie Blum.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business
... ‘Olympic success: How much does a gold medal cost?’ by
Richard Anderson
The average income for South African
blacks in 2012 was R10,000 pa.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/rio-olympics/rio-2016-price-of-success-could-be-92m-per-medal/news-story/d0aa090e2413de0229963de361e902c9
‘For example, the Team USA Athlete
Career and Education Program (ACE) exists to link aspiring athletes
with organizations like Coca-Cola and Dick’s Sporting Goods, among
others, that provide full- and part-time
employment’...http://qz.com/756213/the-true-financial-burden-of-becoming-an-olympic-gold-medalist/
It was the post WWII war soldier
re-build-your-life programme www.gibill.va.gov/
… ‘The GI Bill provides educational assistance to
servicemembers, veterans, and their dependents.’
http://www.prb.org/wpds/2014/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/five_ring_circus/2012/08/12/_2012_olympics_medal_count
xiiiSport:
A Cultural History by Richard D. Mandell
Google at Explore more
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-11/24/content_22513384.htm
xvi
Chinese train technology rolls into Germany - World -
Chinadaily.com.cn
see en.yibada.com/articles/113421/ and
see english.cas.cn › Newsroom › News Updates Apr 15, 2016
‘… a measure of
people’s demand on nature …’ @
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html#.V6fTu_m7iko
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/08/more-americans-are-living-in-slums/400832/
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/05/tories-benefit-cuts-will-add-to-growing-poverty
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/food-banks-growing-struggle-feed-britain-tackle-food-poverty-1480285
http://www.thelocal.fr/20160411/alarm-over-steep-rise-in-poverty-in-paris-region
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-italy-unemployment-idUKBRE93A0EG20130411
‘inconvertible paper money made legal
tender by a government decree’ as backed by the US of As’ army.
