Who's up for a little national pride on a Monday? Tokyo's 2020 summer Olympic games – delayed a year due to COVID – wrapped up over the weekend, and Team USA emerged triumphant. The US collected the most overall medals of the games by a substantial margin, and also staged a late surge to overtake the Chinese for the most gold medals.
No matter how you slice it, we're number one, with a tip of the cap to the over-performing host nation:
The final medals table. Japan finishes 11 more golds than their previous record. Top three are also the top three in same order in GDP rankings. pic.twitter.com/y3NBi8JiZx
— Gearoid Reidy (@GearoidReidy) August 8, 2021
In a final-day sprint to the finish, Team USA overtook China to finish with the most gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics with 39. The United States had to wait until its penultimate gold-medal match to surpass China, but after a win in the women's volleyball final, Team USA clinched the gold-medal count for the third-straight Summer Olympics...The last time that Team USA didn't win the gold-medal count was at the 2008 Games in Beijing. China won 48 gold medals although the U.S. won the overall count with 112 total medals. The U.S. also clinched the overall count in Tokyo with 113 medals, its second-biggest haul dating back to the 1988 Games after winning 121 in Rio. Team USA has not lost the overall medal count since the 1992 Games in Barcelona.
Impressive stuff, and especially satisfying in light of how disappointing this outcome is for the Chinese Communist Party, which is positively obsessed with beating the world in the gold medal count:
China’s sports assembly line is designed for one purpose: churning out gold medals for the glory of the nation. Silver and bronze barely count. By fielding 413 athletes in Tokyo, the largest number since the Beijing Games in 2008, China aims to land at the top of the gold medal count — even if the Chinese public is increasingly wary of the sacrifices made by individual athletes. “We must resolutely ensure we are first in gold medals,” Gou Zhongwen, the head of the Chinese Olympic Committee, said on the eve of the Tokyo Olympics...Rooted in the Soviet model, the Chinese system relies on the state to scout tens of thousands of children for full-time training at more than 2,000 government-run sports schools. To maximize its golden harvest, Beijing has focused on less prominent sports that are underfunded in the West or sports that offer multiple Olympic gold medals...Beijing’s obsession with gold is tied up in the very founding in 1949 of the People’s Republic of China, which was seen as a revolutionary force that would reverse centuries of decay and defeat by foreign powers.
The Communists' government-controlled human conveyor belt failed, thanks to Team USA's late-hour heroics. Earlier in this year's games, a Chinese state media apparatchik whined that American media outlets were focused on the overall medal count, drawing this mockery from yours truly:
you mean, by counting medals? https://t.co/5oXOdA2awb
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) August 4, 2021
Now America has the ultimate clap-back:
So do US athletes. #USA https://t.co/q4gKIiU4dR pic.twitter.com/4KoXkWE7nv
— Tim Roberts (@21stCenturyTim) August 8, 2021
I'll leave you with this:
also consider that the Americans beat them with having their circadian rhythm completely thrown off because of the time difference while the Chinese had to adjust by what an hour or two at the most?
— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) August 8, 2021