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US still favored, but world is gaining
As the Games begin Friday, the Americans will be defending Olympic gold, but other countries are catching up.
ATHENS
When the Olympics eventually draw to a close 17 days from now, the final medal table will probably tell two very different stories. First, that America remains the most dominant nation of the summer Games. And second, that the rest of the world is catching up.
Since 1992, when the former Soviet Union made its last stand as the Unified Team, the United States has been the world's lone sports superpower, largely untroubled in the overall medal standings. The same will almost certainly be true this year - and with lack of a true rival, the US Olympic Committee has instead set it sights on a number: 100 total medals.
The team has a good shot at achieving that mark for only the seventh time in 24 summer Olympiads. Yet even if it does, these Games could be the least successful in American Olympic history by the one most obvious measure: gold.
As the summer Olympics add more sports, such as taekwondo and kayaking, America's gold-medal haul has held largely steady. The result is that its 40 gold medals in the 2000 Olympics represented its smallest share ever of total golds awarded at a Games - only 13 percent.
Considering that it is still the strongest Olympic nation, the US isn't likely to spiral into a crisis of Olympic confidence if it garners a similar total this year. But the figures prove that the new sports have done precisely what they were intended to do - globalize the Games. Moreover, they suggest that while the US might continue to dominate events such as swimming and track, the growth of a whole new and unnoticed Olympic landscape might soon allow nations such as China to test America's medal supremacy.
"I would be shocked" if the US didn't top the medal standings, says David Wallechinsky, an Olympic historian. "But the percentage of gold medals won by the US is going down, and it's not that the US is getting worse. Other countries are getting better."
Gold-colored glasses
Yet the trend will be almost undetectable on American television sets. If anything, the US might even appear more dominant than ever. That's because in America's marquee sports, which get the most US air time, they are.
Michael Phelps and his aqua nostra are seemingly trying to break the 100-medal plateau singlehandedly, bringing to Athens what could be the most talented men's swimming squad since a gallon of gas cost $0.59 - in 1976. The men's and women's gymnastics teams are considered the best in US history, and even after the nation's biggest doping scandal, US Track and Field remains an international juggernaut.
Add in round-the-clock coverage of beach volleyball, where US women are expected to finish atop the medal stand, and American viewers will likely be seeing the Olympics through gold-colored glasses.
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