Readers’ Forum

US still No. 1 in Olympic

The United States of America are certainly the best sports country in the world proved once again with the conclusion of the Rio extravaganza on August 22. The team from the western hemisphere captured 46 gold medals followed by Great Britain and China winning 27 and 26 gold medals respectively.
The Asian nation drowned to the third spot from second in London four years ago and top position at home in Beijing in 2008. The Chinese athletes displayed a extremely poor performance in shooting and gymnastics, in particular, capturing just one gold out of 29.
So far the continents’ performance is considered, West Europe annexed 89 gold medals, Asia 71, North America 63, East Europe 47, South America and Oceania 13 each and Africa 10 only. Besides, Independent Olympic Athletes won one gold medal.
The Brazilians are happy to have annexed gold in soccer for the first time in their history, and in men’s volleyball after 2004. On the other hand, the Chinese people can console themselves to have retained supremacy in badminton (men’s singles and doubles events) and women’s volleyball for the fourth time.
The USA are simply no match to the rest of the world in swimming and field & track. Their swimmers annexed 14 gold medals out of 30 in swimming and 13 out of 47 in field & track.
Russia would have done better had their field & track team been allowed to compete. Every sports federation through out the world should take lessons from the IOC ban on Russian athletics team.
Finally we congratulate the Brazil Olympic Association, the IOC, the US Olympic contingent and the Brazil government for their successes in their respective fields.
From now on let us begin countdown of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
Abdullah Akber
Dhaka