Voices
swimmer Ye Shiwen following her
breathtaking victories in the 200
and 400 IMs (sequel to our allegations that the Chinese female
gymnasts fielded an under aged
team four years ago in Beijing).
And in addition to our continuous grumbling, we have a
problem giving credit where it’s
due. For instance, I would have
loved to learn more about Romanian gymnast Sandra Izbasa,
who actually won the vault finals over our McKayla Maroney,
or about Russia’s Aliya Mustafina, who so far as I can tell has
at least two eponymous gymnastics skills to her name, and who
will leave London with more
hardware around her neck than
America’s sweetheart Gabby
Douglas. (Of course another issue is that three of my illustrations come from women’s gymnastics, a sport that we focus on
for one week every four years,
or approximately .005 percent
of the time.)
It seems to me that we have
trouble both accepting and caring about the greatness of athletes from other nations. Of
course there are some notable
exceptions such as Jamaica’s
rocket-legged Usain Bolt and
HUFFINGTON
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DAN
ROSS
South Africa’s no-legged Oscar Pistorious. But if there isn’t
something unique about your
lower extremities, Americans
aren’t really that interested.
To further illustrate my point,
I decided to engage in a little
thought experiment. I wondered
how exactly NBC might lead their
coverage of Michael Phelps’ record-shattering 22
career medals had
he not been from the
We
good old US of A.
Here’s what I came
Wv