Glenn's Gripes 4

The Olympics.

It seems to be now that the Olympics, be it summer, winter or special, has become not so much of a greatest in the world competition but more of a greatest country in the world competition. That’s all well and good if it was fair but quite simply, it isn’t and it won’t be until the Olympic committee equalize the number of competitors for each country represented.

Currently in Vancouver there are 200 US athletes competing against 204 Candaian athletes, 99 Norwegian, 160, Germans, 96 Japanese, 50 British, and 4 Armenians. As it stands, the USA is currently leading the medal table with Canada and Germany close behind and I’m willing to make a bet with everyone on Facebook that Armenia won’t win the medal tally this year. At the FIFA World Cup Finals, the countries are not allowed an unfair size of squad advantage over other countries and the same should be of the Olympics.

Three ways of correcting the balance for this are:

a) Limit the number of competitors for each country and specify that any country participating must supply that number of athletes or

b) Divide the medal tally by the amount of competitors sent or

c) Divide the medal tally by the population of the country

Any one of these methods will give a more accurate representation of the country/medal ratio. It would also bring to the fore the achievements of the poorer countries that are present and distribute Olympic funding more fairly.

But until Europe and the USA release their stranglehold on the Olympic Committee I suppose that’s never going to happen is it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Olympic_Committee