Post-Olympics

London Olympics came to a close on Aug 12th, when herds of superstars gathered in London Bowl and sang popular British songs since last London Olympics. The closing ceremony lasted for more than three hours, with athletes swarming on the stage and audiences cheering and laughing. After 16-day excitement, London finally waved goodbye to its guests and hopefully it will soon be back to normal life.

Comments on London Olympics seem mixed. IOC President Rogge hailed it as "happy and glorious games", while Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko accused hosts Britain of using political clout to win medals. Like most Olympics in the history, complaints and glories coexisted in London: athletes get the glory, and judges or politicians receive complaints. Heroes are created by Olympics, like Phelps with his 22 Olympic medals. Disputes over rules are also raised, like Daley's seven dives and disqualification of eight badminton players. We try to enjoy fair Olympics, pretending sports are independent of politics, which however is not true: just think of the advantages British athletes have taken of their nationalities, and the unprecedented No. 3 position on the medal tally of Britain. But compared to media who demonize athletes with different background, Olympics did a much better job. When Ye Shiwen was questioned about doping, Olympics knew it was their responsibilities to clarify the fact. Maybe we are already too used to the hideous side of the world, therefore regardless of all the scandals, we still enjoy Olympics, and probably will only remember the glories of Olympics years later.

And that's what we should really pay attention to. Obsession with glories can only make Olympics worse in the future. Frequent cunning play-around with rules should ring the alarm bell. It not only makes games dull, but prevents capable athletes from moving forward. Mo Farah created the best record of Men's 5000m in London Olympics due to his outstanding strategy and won a gold medal. However because of his intentional speed cut in the first few laps to hinder other runners, his record was much worse than current Olympic Record. The same thing happened in women's distance races as well. I'm not saying strategies should not be applied to games, but better rules should be adopted to prevent Olympics from getting "lower, slower and weaker".

Another concern comes from the inefficiency caused by monopoly. Some sports events are dominated by a few countries: like archery by South Korea and badminton by China. Dominance may impede other countries from joining the game given the hopelessness of winning, and it makes sense to encourage less advantaged countries to participate. One way is to have exchange programs for coaches. Korean coaches help Italian athletes get champion in archery, Sun Yang received two gold medals in swimming under the guidance of an Australian coach, and Chinese coaches can be found in almost every diving team in the final. Better training proves effective in improving players' performance.

However sometimes coach exchanges are not enough to make changes. No matter how excellent coaches are hired, Chinese men's basketball and football teams never manage to improve their records in international competitions. Another option is introduced: exchange athletes rather than coaches. It's interesting to see that in table tennis competitions, there are always two Asians playing against each other, regardless what their nationalities are. These players may even be friends and used to receive training in the same team, but now representing different countries. Athlete exchange is probably the worst situation as there is no real improvement in skills of foreign athletes, nor does it popularize the sports abroad. Monopoly is becoming a headache for IOC, who has tried different ways of restricting dominators, but the effect is small.

205 countries attended London Olympics, but only seven of them got more than 10 gold medals. Medals concentrate in a few countries, and this trend seems to be irreversible. Each country's performance in Olympics is strongly correlated with its economy: richer countries can spend more on training equipment and hiring better coaches for their athletes. As long as inequality in the world lasts, monopoly will continue and even exacerbate as inequality is enlarged. If we believe the Solow's converging point, maybe we can expect a fixed ranking on Olympic medal tally of each countries in the future.