里约奥运会奖牌榜 聚焦奥运 伦敦奥运金牌大猜想(2)

聚焦奥运 伦敦奥运金牌大猜想(2)  

Sore Ankles and Split Seconds
A return to U.S. Olympic supremacy would e at a Time when the economy is lagging and when Americans are feeling somewhat less than superpower-like. It also arrives in the middle of a presidential race in which both candidates could use the oute for their benefit: President Obama by noting that the triumph occurred on his watch and Mitt Romney by touting his credentials as the chief of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
Team U.S.A.'s projected success is subject to the whims of world-class athletic petition
of course-an environment where a sore ankle or a few hundredths of a second can make the difference beeen victory and defeat. Two American swimmers
Phelps and Missy Franklin
could help the U.S. win a dozen gold medals
or they could get the flu and leave empty-handed.
当然，我们所预测的美国的成功要受到世界级比赛中偶发因素的制约。在这样的比赛中，胜败就在于脚踝疼痛这样的事情或者百分之几秒的时间差。比如说，美国游泳运动员菲尔普斯和蜜茜•富兰克林(Missy Franklin)有可能帮助美国获得十几枚金牌，但是万一他们得了流感，结果就是空手而归。
If probability bees reality
however
a U.S. romp could presage more dominance in the future. The USOC receives no support from the federal government. But nothing gets Americans to reach into their pocketbooks on behalf of the Olympics more than seeing Americans win.
'The better we do
the more money we can raise
' says Scott Blackmun
chief executive of the USOC.
Olympic improvement tends to e with hosting the Games
as when China soared in 2008. Besides the psychological advantage of peting at home
host countries invest in facilities
coaching and athlete development. China poured money and effort into 'Project 119
' a program to target the 119 potential gold medals in sports where China was traditionally weak
such as swimming
boxing and athletics. The Chinese won 51 gold medals and 100 overall in 2008
up from 28 and 63 in 2004.
The British have spent nearly $500 million to fund training and athletic-development programs since 2009. The Journal projects that Team GB
as it is known
will win 22 gold medals and 66 overall this year
a vast improvement from eight years ago
when Britain won nine gold medals and 31 overall.
The U.S. hasn't hosted a Summer Olympics since 1996 and won't host another one until at least 2024. It spends relatively little on athletes. The USOC shells out on average $106.2 million a year to train and treat its winter and summer athletes and maintain its training centers in Colorado Springs
Lake Placid
N.Y.
and Chula Vista
Calif.
However
while the USOC has the ultimate power of naming the country's Olympic team
it has relatively few resources and athletes under its direct control. The national governing body for each sport
such as USA Track & Field and USA Swimming
is largely responsible for developing future Olympians. In most cases
those groups rely largely on the U.S. collegiate
scholastic and recreational sports systems.
During the 2010-11 school year
the latest for which figures are available
U.S. college athletic departments spent $12.1 billion
according to U.S. Department of Education filings. High-school athletic departments spend several billion dollars more. U.S. parents dig deep also
spending hundreds of millions on training in hopes their kids bee the next Abby Wambach or Nastia Luikin.
Compare that with China
where state-run sports schools b through munities searching for the extremely tall to play basketball and the double-jointed to learn diving. The state oversees their training into adulthood.
That system
says Bill Martin
the former president of the USOC
wouldn't work in the U.S. 'It's not part of the DNA of our country to have one controlling authority on sports
' he says. 'The beauty of our system is that Olympians can e out of anywhere
and they do.'
China's projected medal decline points to a mon post-host hangover and a more fundamental weakness in its approach to athlete development: the decline of the sports school. Over the past decade
the number of sports schools in China has decreased by 40%
according to state-run newspaper Global Times
as the country's booming economy has created more career options for rural youth whose families once viewed sports schools as a meal ticket or the only means of social mobility. Now families are more likely to turn down an invitation to a sports school because other options exist.
Chinese sports officials declined to ment for this story
but Susan Brownell
a professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri
St. Louis
who has written extensively about Chinese sports
says the country 'is just really slowly moving toward a sports system that is more in line with what other countries have─very slowly.'