August 24, 2008

My 2008 Olympics Wrap-Up

On VDARE.com tonight, I discuss the implications of the track and field results, including graphs of brand new data, up through yesterday's marathon, on the racial make-up of the top performances ever in each running event.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought this post on the 'real' medal totals was interesting.

I would also like to know the men/women break down of medals (doesn't anyone really care about 90% of the womens events?)

And you could do a race break down, but obviously that would be a lot of work. Would be interesting nonetheless.

Anonymous said...

The results for the 4X100 relay:

1. Jamaica
2. Trinidad
3. JAPAN

WTF? How does Japan beat a lot of other countries in 100 meters?

Anonymous said...

Consider who runs cross country in American high schools...
Clearly, the East Africans are wildly over-represented (just as they are on Olympic medal stands), since they must be well under 1% of the US population.


Check out this Wikipedia image from a Minnesota state cross-country meet. Three of the twelve runners are black, and at least two if not all three of them appear East African. The two whose uniforms are visible are from Minneapolis South high school, near Mogadishu-on-the-Mississippi. Two of the white boys at the front represent tony Edina, one is from small college town Winona (Miss Ryder's birthplace, BTW), and a ways back a fellow from parochial Benilde-St Margaret's.

East Africans are 1-2% of the state's population (maybe more at high-school age), but are 25% of the runners here. And the white guys fit their own stereotypes.

In particular, South Asia is a black hole for sports other than cricket.

Don't leave out field hockey, a/k/a "hockey" in much of the world. South Asian men are pretty good at that, too. (Polo minus the horse?) But for whatever reason, it's a girls-only sport in America.

Steve Sailer said...

Re: Japan's sprint relay bronze ...

If the U.S. team hadn't dropped the baton in a prelim round, Japan would have finished fourth, same as in 2004.

The Japanese first made 100 meter dash finals in the 1930s Olympics. In 1932, a Japanese won the long jump, the sprinter's field event (e.g., Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis). They got good at sprinting and leaping in the 1930s exactly the way you'd expect the Japanese to do it: study films of the world's best, then study them closely. The top Japanese sprinter today has some complicated way to run that involves synchronizing the arm and leg motions. I don't think Usain Bolt would pay attention to this new style, but it got the Japanese fellow a bronze in the 200m at a recent World Championship.

Anonymous said...

To the anonymous who mentioned Japan's success at the 4x100 men's relay results:

The women's 4x100 relay gold medal went to Russia

I saw that race and can report that all four of the Russian women were white. The Jamaicans dropped the baton. I'm sure that if you practice the handover a lot, you can minimize the inevitable slowdown that it causes. These same Russian women were not at all successful in the individual 100m competition. Someone should do a historical racial breakdown of the relay races and compare it to the data Steve compiled on the individual races. Practice and discipline should become important when you introduce the batons into the equation.

Anonymous said...

Regarding African superiority in running ability, it's such an open and shut case that it's almost not worth discussing anymore. The more interesting question is why, when the physical differences are so plainly apparent, do people automatically assume that even broaching the question of mental differences is pure sacrilege. I say to people all the time, when the husks are so obviously different in so many ways, why do you assume that the inside workings are exactly the same? I'm met with the usual array of responses, from outrage at my racism to shudders of disapproval, to shaking of the head at my evil nature. All of which leads me to the most interesting question of all: who is it who has successfully brainwashed the public into believing that to be empirically observant is to be evil? And why did they do this?

Anonymous said...

Why the singular obsession with track events?

It seems no more fundamentally historic in human existence and even less relevant than boxing, wrestling or even armed pugilistic sports (fencing).

Like swimming, track's linear simplicity holds some attraction and ease of analysis. However, very few people can personally relate to timed track races. There are probably far more participants of volleyball, handball, skiers and judo than competitive track events among your readership (not to mention softball, basketball, etc).

This singular obsession sees at odd with the whole human biodiversity thing.

Unknown said...

daveg,

The "post" is no longer available at yahoo. do you have a copy you could post here? Or does anyone else?

Anonymous said...

Steve, just out of curiosity, did you run track? And may I ask, what were your events and times? Come on, come clean.

Anonymous said...

The link to the real medal totals is here.

Anonymous said...

Are you going to cover the question of the underage Chinese gymnasts?

What I found most outrageous was the cowardly behavior of the FIG and IOC. They were able to ban North Korean girl for lying about her age. I guess North Korea isn't scary, but China is.

Anonymous said...

Halfbreed:

Don't know if you're old enough to remember, but in '87, NBC did a "white paper," in which Brokaw pretended to investigate whether black athletic superiority was due to physical differences. The interesting thing about this film was the disparity in attitudes between the academics interviewed and ordinary blacks. The black kids they talked to on playgrounds said, sure, we just have different bodies than whites. Anyway, a few months later I caught a cable show hosted by a guy named Ralph Wiley. Speaking to an all-black audience, Wiley expressly said that the connection between athletic superiority and black bodies had to be denied because otherwise it would promote the conclusion that poor black academic performance resulted from mental deficiencies.

Anonymous said...

not an olympics wrap-up, just a track and field wrap-up. and not even a track & field wrap-up. just a track wrap-up, and pretty much just a track sprinting wrap-up.

totally ignoring field is very important for the silly entine-esque analysis going on here. white men can't jump, except when they can. black americans easily dominate jumping, except when they don't.

throwing objects is completely natural, as natural as running. it's why there is a huge difference between men and women when it comes to throwing. men are literally designed to throw. it's genetic. africans are throwing rocks and spears every single day. yet it's white men who are better at throwing things on average. and not just a shotput or a discus or a javelin, but footballs and baseballs and basketballs too. they're just plain better at hurling and shooting stuff for accuracy and distance. but positive stereotypes about white athletes are never allowed.

should we even get into how ridiculous some of steve's statements are in his vdare column? boxing is not important now he says. that can only be because white boxers have taken many of the belts. many boxers from former communist nations, who were prevented from boxing in the past, are now winning many belts. they are poor, poorer than black americans, and they are hungry for boxing success.

but let's pretend that actual africans are not interested in money. let's pretend it's hard and expensive, instead of easy and cheap, to join a boxing gym. there are only hundreds of millions of actual africans. aren't they genetically superior here? shouldn't they easily knock out any silly white guy who steps in the ring? was entine correct or was he just a sniveling non-athlete who's ideas were somewhat wrong?

Anonymous said...

how about the basketball tournament? it's so totally obvious that the field has caught up to the black american superhumans. they only beat spain by 11, and had ginobili not gotten hurt, they would have only beat argentina by 10 or so.

if the US does not send it's best, most organized basketball team to london in 2012, they will lose. never again will the americans be able to send 12 random black players to the tournament and win.

track and basketball are black americans' best sports, but there is only so much that 40 million black americans can do. they can't beat the world forever. developing some talent out of the 200 million white americans would certainly not kill anybody, but if we keep listening to jon entine, we'll continue to ignore a huge talent pool. it's mind boggling how much australia can do with only 20 million citizens.

Anonymous said...

Good article Steve.

I do, however, have two quibbles: 1) When making your point on how “not massive” Usain Bolt is, you link to a picture of him from Osaka in 2007 when he weighed 167 lbs. and ran a 10.03 sec. 100m. This year, he now weighs 189 lbs. or 200 lbs., depending on which listing you believe, and runs 9.69 sec. I don’t know about you, but I always find a 10 to 15 kg weight gain in one off-season combined with a 0.34 sec. drop in 100m time to be a bit suspicious. Maybe he’s just maturing since he’s now 22 as opposed to 21 in your picture, but by 21 most men are fully developed. Bolt is, however, something of a freak, even among the freaky group of people who are world class sprinters. As I noted in an earlier post, if you look at Bolt, he is the anti-Phelps: just as Phelps has the upper body of a 6’8” man and the legs of a 6’ man, Bolt has the torso and upper legs of a 6’ sprinter and the shin bones of a 7-footer.

2) While I agree with you that doping won’t change which ethnicity wins, it does seem likely that it can reorder the top finishers. It is unlikely that everybody will respond to doping to exactly the same degree due to differences in physiology. I suspect that doping helps taller athletes more. The main advantages of being tall in most sports are: 1) superior reach, 2) you can carry more bulk (a bigger frame to add steroid induced muscle to) and 3) given a rotational speed at the pivot point, i.e., the joint, the longer the lever, the greater the speed at the end of the lever will be, which is great for imparting velocity to objects or to yourself in running and jumping. The bane of the tall athlete, however, is torque (lengthening the lever tends to move the center of gravity further from the pivot point, requiring more force to accelerate, decelerate, or change direction of the lever) and the problem that volume/weight goes up faster than strength as one increases in size (controlling for various muscle and neurological factors not related to stature, a muscle’s ability to generate force is basically it’s cross sectional area perpendicular to the axis of contraction (width X depth). Weight goes up with volume (length X width X depth). If you just get taller, but not broader, your weight goes up linearly, but your strength not at all. If you get larger proportionately (taller, wider, deeper), your strength goes up squared and your weight cubed. Hence, more weight and more torque make it harder for a big man to rotate his joints at the same speed as a smaller man. Who is faster depends on whether the shorter man can rotate his joints so much faster than the bigger man that the velocity at the end of his limbs faster, despite them being shorter.)

I suspect tall athletes gain more from doping because it allows them to take fuller advantage of their frames that would otherwise be underpowered. Notice how many more very tall athletes have appeared since the 90s, despite the fact that the means and S.D.s of the adult heights of U.S. born whites and blacks have remained virtually unchanged since the 1950 birth cohort. For example, why are there so many 6’6” to 6’8” offensive linemen in the NFL? In the 70s, 80s and 90s they used to be mostly in the 6’1” to 6’4” range. Why did exceptionally tall people suddenly come to the fore in so many sports, ranging from sprinting to football to swimming, where in the past athletes tended to be above average height, but not freaky tall? Where were they in the past? I’ll never forget attending a football camp in high school run by the coaching staff of a D-1 program. They were fawning over this kid who was 6’5” and 260lbs at age 17. He wasn’t particularly strong or effective in scrimmaging. When the coach expressed interest in him, the kid said that unfortunately he didn’t have “quick feet.” The coach responded, “Don’t worry about that son. We just want your frame. We can give you stuff to make you athletic.”

Anonymous said:
“WTF? How does Japan beat a lot of other countries in 100 meters?”

Don’t discount East Asian athleticism. Because W Africans are so dominant in the sprints, the relative performances of other groups tend not to get noticed. However, East Asians tend to do at least as well as whites at the shorter sprints (100m and 110m hurdles), whereas whites excel them in the long sprints (200m and 400m). The best several times for whites and East Asians in each of the following sprints on the IAAF all time top-lists are:

100m:
White: 1) Marian Woronin (POL) 10.00, 2) Pietro Mennea (ITA) 10.01, t3) Matthew Shirvington (AUS) 10.03, t3) Nicolas Macrozonaris (CAN – Greek descent) 10.03, t5) Johan Rossouw (RSA) 10.06, t5) Frank Emmelmann (GER) 10.06
Asian: 1) Koji Ito (JAP) 10.00, 2) Nobuhara Asahara (JAP) 10.02, 3) Shingo Suetsugu 10.03

110m hurdles
White: 1) Florian Schwarthoff (GER) 13.05, 2) Stanislavs Olijars (LAT) 13.08, 3) Frank Balzer (GER) 13.10
Asian: 1) Xiang Liu (CHN) 12.88, 2) Dongpeng Shi (CHN) 13.19, 3) Tong Li (CHN) 13.25

200m
White: 1) Pietro Mennea (ITA) 19.72, 2) Konstadinos Kederis (GRE) 19.85, 3) Marcin Urbas (POL) 19.98
Asian: 1) Shingo Suetsugu 20.03, 2) Koji Ito 20.16

400m
White: 1) Jeremy Wariner (USA) 43.45, 2) Alberto Jauntourena (appears white) (CUB) 44.26, 3) Alejandro Cardenas (appears white) (MEX) 44.31, 3) Thomas Schoenlebe (GER) 44.33, 4) Andrew Rock (USA) 44.35, 5) Iwan Thomas (UK) 44.36, 6) Roger Black (UK) 44.37
Asian: no Asians under 44.70

Asians may have the disadvantage of shorter legs vis-à-vis whites, but they also have narrower pelvises, which is a biomechanical advantage. Also note that Japan is the only Asian nation to have had first world health and nutrition and to have focused on track and field for any length of time (though China now seems to be emphasizing the 110m hurdles) and has exceeded any single white nation in the talent it has brought forth in the short sprints. Also, in recent Olympics and World Championships, the Japanese have done better in the short sprints than any white nation. My own anecdotal observations from having grown up around a lot of East Asians (mostly Koreans and Chinese) and running high school track is that they have, on average, superior explosion, stride turnover, and pick up to whites, but are somewhat limited in the long sprints because of their shorter, short legged physiques. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were significantly better than whites at the 40 yard dash on average, for instance. Given that China has started to emphasize track, I would not be surprised if the first non-W African/Australian Aborigine to break 10.00s in the 100m is an East Asian instead of white. I don’t think, however, that they will ever challenge whites in the 200m and 400m.

At the football camp I referenced above, there was a Japanese football team from Kyoto, and a highly ranked NJ Catholic school team (who were violating the rules by being there as a team and conducting their own practices apart from the rest of the participants at the camp before the official high school start date). The virtually all white Catholic school team scrimmaged the football club from Kyoto. The Catholic team won by a small margin because their huge, 250 lb. +, white lineman overwhelmed the Japanese lineman, who ran about 5’9” 185 lbs. on average. However, the skilled players on the Japanese team were much faster than their white counterparts and ran circles around them. One of my roommates at the camp, who was a cornerback for the Catholic school team, commented to me at dinner after the game that he couldn’t believe how quick the Japs are. He said, “There definitely faster than white people. They’re almost like Brothers.”

-Philly Guy

Anonymous said...

Boxing, wrestling, and even mixed martial arts are pretty much unrelated to anything that would have been necessary in our ancestral environment.

Perhaps people participated in fake fights to determine relative status and impress mates, but that can be said about any number of competitive events.

kurt9 said...

My question is why Jamaica and not the Bahamas or Haiti? Both Bahamas and Haiti are black populations and, yet, do not compete well in the Olympics. What is the difference between Jamaicans compared to Bahamians and Haitians?

Anonymous said...

"My question is why Jamaica and not the Bahamas or Haiti?"

Kurt, the Bahamas only has a population of 330,000 and only about 70& of them are black, compared to Jamaica's 2,800,000 who are 90% black. The Bahamas usually gets a few sprinters into the semi finals. As for Haiti, it really is a desperately poor country even in comparison to Jamaica.

Anonymous said...

steve what about swimming???

Anonymous said...

Bad Imitation --
I am old enough, although to tell the truth I don't remember that particular show. You have it exactly right, btw, the reason that liberals always shy away from talking about physical differences is because it implies mental differences.

In defense of Steve, the reason that analyzing the running events is more interesting than, say, handball or skiing or judo, is because it is the most direct measure of genetic differences. Participation in most of the other sports are influenced by culture, by economic status, and by the relative availability of other sports.

Anonymous said...

Regarding Usain Bolt: he has none of the classic signs of steroid use: When he gets set in the starting position, with his hands on the track, his upper arms look positively skinny. With a lot of the sprinters you can see every last striation in their massive deltoids. His overall build is elegant as opposed to massive. He reminds me physicaly of John aki-Bua, the great Ugandan intermediate hurdler. No big trapezius muscles (which you see even on some of the women sprinters), no convex-but-muscular stomach, no veins popping out of unusual places. His improvement has been steady, and he showed incredible talent at a very young age, becoming the youngest World Junior champion ever (at age 15, I believe). A lot of the steroid guys tend to have modest college careers, then suddenly blossom at a relatively late age. And Bolt's running gait is relatively loose-limbed. The steroid guys tend to run very tight. Look at the difference between his style and Shawn Crawford's. Crawford looks as if he is about to tie up at any second, whereas Bolt stays loose the entire way. I've been surprised before (by Marion Jones), but I think Bolt certainly seems clean.

Anonymous said...

how about the basketball tournament? it's so totally obvious that the field has caught up to the black american superhumans. they only beat spain by 11, and had ginobili not gotten hurt, they would have only beat argentina by 10 or so.

if the US does not send it's best, most organized basketball team to london in 2012, they will lose. never again will the americans be able to send 12 random black players to the tournament and win.


What? The 2008 U.S. team only had one close game in the Olympics, an 11-point victory over Spain (since when is winning by 11 points considered a close game?). I understand that some Americans who frequent isteve.com were utterly thrilled about the struggles of the U.S. teams during the 2002-2006 era. Some of you reveled in the failures of the all-black U.S. team that "only" won bronze in 2004 (since when is winning a bronze medal easy and cause for ridicule?). Many laughs and derisions were had at the seeming ineptitude and lack of teamwork that plagued those teams. Quite a few of you no doubt opined that the 2008 would perform no better.

However, the 2008 squad basically rolled through the world's talent, with only one modest challenge against Spain in the gold medal game (again, which was "only" won by 11 points). Even though the world's talent is as great as ever, this year's U.S. team by far bested the competition. Yet, you still cannot give credit to the team that represented your country honorably (I am assuming that you are American. If I err, I apologize). The average margin of victory was very large at 28 points (!), yet you still found a way to pooh-pooh the accomplishments of this team and have somehow convinced yourself that J.J. Reddick, Adam Morrison, Luke Walton, Tyler Hansbrough, and Greg Paulus would have done better. Was Argentina’s margin of victory 28 points per game when the nation won gold in 2004?

I find it striking that some of you were disqualifying the achievements of black NBA and NCAA championship teams by attributing the success to supposed Americanized rules that are deemed to be geared to the benefit of blacks. Yet, the black 2008 team (and the 2000, 1996, and 1992 teams) proved that it can fare very well under foreign rules.

Some of you remind me of black politicians who suggest or imply that there is a wealth of black American talent that is currently qualified to be physicists at Boeing, top-ranked R&D chemists at Pfizer, and key executives at Google, but is prevented from doing so by white racism.

Anonymous said...

My own anecdotal observations from having grown up around a lot of East Asians (mostly Koreans and Chinese) and running high school track is that they have, on average, superior explosion, stride turnover, and pick up to whites

...

However, the skilled players on the Japanese team were much faster than their white counterparts and ran circles around them.

I'm a white guy who grew up playing football and running track at a school in Hawaii that was ~80% Japanese ethnics. We had very small, but very successful teams, often beating squads filled with massive Polynesians. I attribute this mostly to the AJA kids' speed/quickness, strength, and toughness.

Even accounting for shorter average height/limbs and the expected mechanical advantages, a lot of these guys were just super strong and powerful. I was no slouch with the weights, but these guys would put me to shame. It always seemed to me like a lot of them were on something (which I don't think was the case, this being before 'roids were mainstream), since they didn't seem to have to work all that hard at it.

A lot of time spent in gyms since has convinced me that they probably really were naturally stronger than whites on average. Maybe faster and quicker, too.

Anonymous said...

Halfbreed said:
“Regarding Usain Bolt: he has none of the classic signs of steroid use.”

I agree with you that whether or not he is a doper is far from unequivocal. However, he did but on 10 to 15kg of solid muscle since the last track season and the fact that he was running so well at 15 tends to argue against that he is one of those people who is a late maturer and still filling out. Also, his arms are not that skinny and he is very muscular. There are types of steroids, like halotesten, that add strength without causing one to put on a lot of bulk. Anyway, he could have run a 9.6s if he had run through the tape and I’m quite skeptical about anyone who can outclass the rest of the best in the world by that much. On the other hand, I have put forward the hypothesis in earlier posts that, like Phelps, he is a biomechanical freak and may really just be better than anyone else, doping or not. Look closely at him when he’s running the 100m and 200m. His torso and upper legs are about the same length of the other sprinters. He’s so tall because he has freakishly long shin bones (and forearms). If you look at him, his dimensions (e.g., breadth of torso, muscle thickness, etc.) are similar to the other sprinters. He just looks so much more slender because of those elongated lower legs and forearms, and this is probably why he weighs so little for such a tall man – long, thin lower legs don’t add that much weight. These proportions are be great for sprinting. He gets the advantage of long levers through the long lower legs, but the relatively low mass of the distal segments keeps the center of gravity close to the hip, keeping torque down.

To all those criticizing Steve and Entine as denigrating white abilities, please look at the issue objectively and not with your heart. You are certainly correct that in the U.S. whites are discouraged and discriminated against when trying to play certain sports or positions because people assume that blacks are better and make the logical fallacy that there are no Jason Seahorns out there. You should be angry about this. However, the physique of West Africans does give them, on average (and only on average), a biomechanical advantage for sprinting, jumping, and (at least in theory) throwing. At the same time, their physiques should give them a biomechanical disadvantage in sports such as weightlifting and powerlifting. Their physiology gives them an average advantage over whites in activities involving short, 60 to 90 second bursts of anaerobic power. At the same time, they are at a disadvantage for longer lasting, aerobic activities.

These differences do give blacks and whites different strengths and weaknesses in various sports, and the more complex and multi-dimensional a sport is, the less any one specific ability comes to the fore. Instead, success depends on the aggregate broad spectrum of abilities and various deficiencies and strengths can make up for one another. People here have cited white success in boxing, MMA and other fighting sports. Blacks’ advantages are not unequivocal in fighting sports. Yes, reach aids in striking and explosive power is helpful, but fighting takes an enormous amount of stamina and a 60 to 90 second anaerobic burst is not that helpful if you’re too tired to go on afterward. In addition, grappling arts take an enormous amount of skill and knowledge. It is a game of inches and, as a long time practitioner of Judo and BJJ, I can attest that if you move a little in the wrong direction, you lose leverage and end up getting thrown or submitted out.

Re blacks and throwing: Whites dominate throwing field events. However, there have been good black throwers. The current number one shot putter in the world, Reese Hoffa, is black. Even though he did choke in the Olympics and throw about 6’ short of his season’s best in Beijing, he is one of the best out there. C.J. Hunter was a good thrower and Michael Carter, who still holds the U.S. high school shot put record (which is at an age where he was likely clean and there is greater participation because football hasn’t yet siphoned off a lot of throwing talent) and collected an Olympic silver medal, gave up his promising shot put career to pursue a far more lucrative career as a nose tackle for the SF 49ers. I suspect that blacks would do better in the throws if they weren’t distracted by football and other more prestigious money sports. Somebody also mentioned whites’ dominance at QB. This isn’t exactly involved with throwing strength. In fact, black QBs tend to have the best arms. Whites tend to be better passers because they are more accurate, which makes sense considering that whites do better on tests of g, spatial relations, hand eye coordination and manual dexterity. Being a good passing QB is not so much about having a cannon arm. Of course adequate arm strength is a prerequisite, but reading defenses, knowing the plays and where your receivers are supposed to be, making adjustments at the line depending on the defensive set, seeing the field well, accurately passing the ball, and knowing when to throw the ball away are far more important. One would expect whites to be better at this given their strengths noted above.

One could do such analyses of various sports. I don’t think Steve or Entine are guilty of white bashing. There are many good white athletes. However, in many sports that people like, speed is important and blacks do have an advantage there.

-Philly Guy

Anonymous said...

"A lot of time spent in gyms since has convinced me that [Japanese/East Asians] probably really were naturally stronger than whites on average. Maybe faster and quicker, too."

Funny you should bring this up. I've had several Chinese and Japanes American friends that were surprisingly strong for their size in the gym. They weren't putting up stagering numbers, but when you consider their weight, they did much better than most of the whites of similar size. To me, overall size seems to be the main Asian athletic shortcomming. They're good little athletes, with "little" being the key qualifier. Not only are they shorter, but the medical literature recommends lower weight for height/body mass indexes for them because they generally have a smaller bone structure. In most American sports like basketball or football (and even baseball to some extent), height and/or bulk are a definite advantage and there seem to be proportionately a lot less 6'3", 250 lb. or 6'8" East Asian guys than white or black guys floating about.
- Philly Guy

Anonymous said...

halfbreed:

People are like that. Whack them upside the head with evidence that their treasured beliefs are nonsense, and they're far more likely to tar and feather you than to thank you for clearing up their confusion.

Anonymous said...

No one has mentioned Christine Ohuruogu, the winner in the 400m race. Is she on drugs?

She was banned for missing 3 drug tests, and then was re-instated because she had never actually failed a drug test. She's hoooge, much bigger than the American favorite Sanya Richards.

Truth said...

"it's so totally obvious that the field has caught up to the black american superhumans..."

They beat the second best team in the world twice by a total of FORTY-EIGHT POINTS. In the second game they scored 118 points in A FORTY MINUTE GAME and shot over SEVENTY PERCENT from the floor. And this was a team with 5 NBA players.

If that's catching up, I'd like to see being left behind.

Anonymous said...

Truth, I don't think you watched that game (or the pool play game, which saw a Spain non-effort). The gold medal game was a one-two possession game into the last two minutes. If the USA hadn't shot uncharacteristically well at 3 pointers, they would have lost. The USA is in deep trouble starting at the very next World Championships, not to mention the next Olympics, as team Spain is much younger and USA won't have D. Wade, who carried them all tournament.

Anonymous said...

Truth, I don't think you watched that game (or the pool play game, which saw a Spain non-effort). The gold medal game was a one-two possession game into the last two minutes. If the USA hadn't shot uncharacteristically well at 3 pointers, they would have lost.

Again, the U.S. team's average margin of victory was 28 points! Its only close game was an eleven-point victory over a great Spanish team (proving that the team can respond well to adversity, another sign of greatness). Yet, some of you are sounding like the American team performed poorly. Had Argentina or Spain won gold by an average margin of 28 (or 15 or 10) points, I'm sure that many of you would be proclaiming said team to be a virtual basketball superpower. It is amazing that facts and evidence do not get in the way of one's preconceptions.

White nationalists and liberals are opposite sides of the same coin. One side judges blacks by embarrassingly low standards (liberals: "Wow, black man, you can spell polysyllabic words, you are deserving of a scholarship to Penn!"). The other side assesses blacks by impossibly high standards (white nationalists: "What? The all-black U.S. team only won gold by an average margin of 28 points? Is that all? The Latvian team would have done much better!").

Anonymous said...

figured this would interest you