Wednesday, Jul 9, 2008
Olympics: Americans shouldn't feel guilty about rooting for the USA. Plus: More announcers, good and bad. And: Weird women's water polo coverage.
Aug 27, 2004 | Thursday was a pretty good day to be an American sports fan, if you don't mind watching the home country win.
Strange as that sounds, a lot of us apparently do mind seeing the American teams and athletes on the podium. An ESPN.com poll this week -- unscientific but still telling -- found that a majority of respondents were hoping to see the U.S. men's basketball team lose, and three out of four said they'd at least "kind of" like to see the USA hoopsters take a tumble.
There's been a surprising groundswell of support in this country for the idea of gymnast Paul Hamm giving back the gold medal he'd won in the men's all-around after South Korea protested a judging mistake.
In the liberal circles of my in box, various message boards I frequent and certain corners of the media, the sentiment -- widespread if not prevailing -- seems to be that the United States should keep its head down, not wave the flag, not celebrate victory or even root for it.
In the three short years since the mass embracing of the red, white and blue that followed Sept. 11, we're back to the idea that America is evil, that we deserve to lose, that if we win we should sort of apologize for it, that any hatred of us that comes from any corner is justified and right on.
I understand. The United States has been acting atrociously on the world stage in the last three years. You needn't be a frothing extremist to call the arrogant, bullying, oil-before-people, cronies-before-policy regime of George W. Bush evil.
But the sprinters who swept the 200 meters Thursday night didn't invade Iraq with no real plan. Shawn Crawford, Bernard Williams and Justin Gatlin, who won gold, silver and bronze, didn't bamboozle anyone about weapons of mass destruction.
The American women's soccer team, which won the gold medal Thursday by beating a better Brazilian side with heart, guile, luck and the liberal use of its own goalposts, hasn't denied anyone's rights at Guantánamo Bay.
Dwight Phillips and John Moffitt, the Yanks who went gold-silver in the long jump, didn't abuse any prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
The Americans won that 200-meter race after enduring a 10-minute delay as the crowd at Olympic Stadium booed and whistled. The Greek fans were mad because they'd been expecting to spend the night watching national hero Kostas Kenteris, the defending Olympic 200-meter champion. But Kenteris missed a drug test just before the Olympics, then was involved in a highly convenient motorcycle accident and withdrew.
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