Olympic Medal Analysis: 3 Myths About China vs. USA – Myth 2

Last week I posted the first 2 parts in a 4-part series analyzing the medal results from the recent 2008 Beijing Olympics.  In the first post I laid-out a scoring system for comparing each country’s performance (3 points for a Gold, 2 points for Silver, 1 point for a Bronze) and I addressed the question of whether China or the USA “won” the medal race.  In the second post I discussed the first of 3 myths (or at least pre-conceptions that I brought into the games) that were contradicted by the actual medal count data.

In this, the 3rd installment in the series, I will be discussing…

Myth #2: The United States is a country that tends to glamorize strong, independent, and innovative, individuals over the group/collective.  China, a Communist country, prioritizes self-sacrifice, group discipline, and group organization/coordination over the individual.  Consequently, in the Olympics, one would expect American individuals to perform better than Chinese individuals and Chinese teams to perform better than American teams.

Reality:

In order to asses this assertion I grouped each Olympic event into three categories based on the number of participants involved:

• Individual – Events in which a single athlete competes on their own behalf. The vast majority of Olympic events fall into this category.
• Pairs – Events in which two athletes compete co-operatively.  Events in this category include: Synchronized Diving; Pairs Rowing; Doubles Tennis, Table Tennis, and Badminton; and Beach Volleyball.
• Teams – Events in which more than two athletes compete co-operatively.  Events in this category include some Rowing events, Basketball, Baseball, Soccer, Indoor Volleyball, Water Polo, Softball, Track & Swimming Relay Races, Synchronized Swimming, and Team Gymnastics.

Again, the data is quite counter-intuitive:

American individualism seems to be worth relatively little, at least when compared to China’s performance, in Individual events, where both countries performed quite comparably.  Meanwhile, contrary to the idea that the Chinese would excel in group activities, the United States dominated Team events.  Equally inexplicably, however, China showed a clear command of Pairs events.

I considered several possible explanations for the USA’s strong performance in Team Sports:

• Economics – Perhaps China doesn’t have the financial resources to develop the number of athletes that are necessary for large teams and instead has chosen to focus its efforts on events with fewer competitors.  This assertion seems easily dismissed given the scope of the resources spent  by China in preparation for the 2008 Olympics.
• Cultural Bias – Perhaps the USA benefits from high-profile, world-class leagues that have not had time to develop in countries such as China.  While this may be true of a few sports (Basketball, Baseball) it fails to explain USA’s strong performance in Water Polo, Volleyball, and Softball.
• Size & Strength – Since most of the Team sports are also contact sports, perhaps the American athletes are simply advantaged because they tend to be bigger and stronger.  This explanation is contradicted, however, by China’s strong performance in Weightlifting and many individual contact sports such as Boxing, Judo, etc.

Ultimately, I am at a loss and unable to come up with a solid explanation for why China, a country that demonstrated its ability to coordinate groups of people to stunning effect in the Beijing Opening Ceremonies was so roundly outperformed in Team Sports by a nation that worships individualism.  I am even more baffled by China’s strong performance (and the USA’s pathetic one) in Pairs events.  If you feel that you have a good explanation for either of these observations, please post a comment.

Otherwise, stay tuned for the 4th and final installment in this series, later this week…