The Australian Olympic Team – Where Too Much Ain’t Enough

The Olympics are over, and I hope that we as a nation-state have sated our gluttony for gold medals for a few months at least.

After all, we did win 18 of those at these Olympics, the most we have ever won in history, coming fourth in the tally behind the USA, China, and Japan – nations which are far larger and more powerful than us in terms of population, wealth, and economic influence.

I tend to agree with the extremely cynical guerrilla rock band TISM, who have surfaced at various times over the past 40 years to amuse and entertain Melburnians with their unique satirical version of rock music.

Their savage Olympic focused song ‘Give up for Australia!’ wearily chants:
“Five metres! Four, three, two, one!
Gold to Australia! Gold to Australia!
Gold to Australia! Gold to Australia!”
Gold! Gold!

[Verse 1]
May all our young Aussie swimmers
Be resigned to failure
May our nation state
Be always second rate

[Sample]
“Five metres! Four, three, two, one!
Gold, gold, gold! Gold, gold, gold!”

[Verse 2]
May Timorese fishermen
Evade the Aussie sailor
May we do as history teaches
Die on Middle Eastern beaches

[Chorus]
Give up, give up, give up, give up
Give up, give up, give up, give up
Give up for Australia
Give up for Australia
Give up for Australia
Give up for Australia

The ‘gold for Australia’ bits are samples from some actual sports commentator as one or other swimmer approaches the finishing line.

I have regularly and wearily commented over the years, both inside this blog and in person, about how unhealthy it is for Australia to obsess over the Olympic medal tally to the extent it does. This is the sort of attitude more suited to the propaganda motives of tyrannies and totalitarian regimes rather than that of a prosperous liberal democracy.

Let’s look at the top ten medal tallies from a few significant moments in time.

Berlin 1936

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Germany*	38	31	32	101
2	United States	24	21	12	57
3	Hungary	10	1	5	16
4	Italy	9	13	5	27
5	Finland	8	5	6	19
6	France	7	6	6	19
7	Sweden	6	5	10	21
8	Japan	6	4	10	20
9	Netherlands	6	4	7	17
10	Austria	5	7	5	17

Melbourne 1956

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Soviet Union	37	29	32	98
2	United States	32	25	17	74
3	Australia*	13	8	14	35
4	Hungary	9	10	7	26
5	Italy	8	8	9	25
6	Sweden*	8	5	6	19
7	United Team of Germany	6	13	7	26
8	Great Britain	6	7	11	24
9	Romania	5	3	5	13
10	Japan	4	10	5	19

Montreal 1976

Rank	NOC	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Soviet Union	49	41	35	125
2	East Germany	40	25	25	90
3	United States	34	35	25	94
4	West Germany	10	12	17	39
5	Japan	9	6	10	25
6	Poland	7	6	13	26
7	Bulgaria	6	9	7	22
8	Cuba	6	4	3	13
9	Romania	4	9	14	27
10	Hungary	4	5	13	22

Seoul 1988

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Soviet Union	55	31	46	132
2	East Germany	37	35	30	102
3	United States	36	31	27	94
4	South Korea*	12	10	11	33
5	West Germany	11	14	15	40
6	Hungary	11	6	6	23
7	Bulgaria	10	12	13	35
8	Romania	7	11	6	24
9	France	6	4	6	16
10	Italy	6	4	4	14

Paris 2024

Rank	NOC	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States	40	44	42	126
2	China	40	27	24	91
3	Japan	20	12	13	45
4	Australia	18	19	16	53
5	France*	16	26	22	64
6	Netherlands	15	7	12	34
7	Great Britain	14	22	29	65
8	South Korea	13	9	10	32
9	Italy	12	13	15	40
10	Germany	12	13	8	33

I have chosen 1936 because it was the last Olympic Games before the Cold War, where the host nation, Nazi Germany, clearly won the medal tally as part of their ideologically driven push to show their national superiority. I note that their allies Fascist Italy and Militarist Japan also did fairly well.

Next is 1956, both because it was hosted in Australia, and because the Cold War was in full swing by then. The Soviet Union, not a contender pre-war, topped the tallies, with other Warsaw Pact nations also making a decent showing.

Montreal 1976 is significant because it was the last Olympics for 12 years not to be marred by boycotts by either the Western Bloc or the Eastern Bloc. Both the Soviet Union and its ally East Germany did extremely well, and the top 10 was well represented by other communist regimes, including unlikely Cuba.

Seoul 1988 was the last Olympics before the Velvet Revolution and the end of the Cold War. Again, the Soviet Union and East Germany topped the medal table, with other Warsaw Pact allies showing much success.

And of course we can now compare those results to Paris 2024, where Russia is under a blanket ban from competing due to the discovery of what probably is a half century plus of drug cheating, but where Communist China is the new tyrant on the Bloc (sic), able to stand shoulder to shoulder in sport against the Western Democracies.

The moral of the story is that even if you are not rich enough, you can still spend a lot of money and similarly buy success at the Olympics. Fascist regimes did that in 1936, and Communist regimes did that for the entirety of the Cold War. It was simply a matter of redirecting resources away from the people and (temporarily) away from armament programs.

The propaganda value of doing that is high, which is why dictators have always placed such an emphasis on it, not all that far removed from the extravagant funding of gladiatorial games by the Roman Emperors.

And where does that leave Australia? Ever since the nasty shock of failing to Gold in 1976 (although to be honest, that probably has something to do with East German drug cheats who have not been retrospectively discovered and disqualified), we have placed a growing and unhealthy emphasis on funding elite sports, so that we can compete on the international stage.

A wealthy nation does not need to excessively fund sport – the amount of leisure time and aggregate public health standards means that our people are going to be more competitive without needing to pump the dollars in. And with a healthy democracy, we do not need to promote the propaganda value of sport as a nation building myth.

But we do and will continue to do so, and it is about to get much worse.

During the Olympics, London gold medallist Sally Pearson has been using the soap box of the Murdoch Press to argue for even greater funding. With the 2032 Brisbane Olympics looming closer and closer, she argues emotively for greater funding for sports stadia in Brisbane to replace the current ones, so that the nation will not be embarrassed. She also argues for greater direct funding to elite athletes, including in sports where Australia is not historically competitive, so as to offset the great personal sacrifices those aspirational Olympians make to achieve their dreams.

[I do not think Break Dancing figures in the sports she wishes to get greater funding. I did not find Sally Pearson’s comments on Break Dancing to be particularly coherent as far as any messaging went.]

I say that enough is enough. Our national gluttony for sports gold at virtually any cost is unbecoming to us as a nation, both as being unsporting, and reflective of values better suited to a tyranny than to a democracy.