Olympic Developments

Every four years, the United States proves its athletic superiority in the Olympic Games, dominating the medal count and reassuring the American people of our athletic prowess. When the Soviet Union and East Germany competed on par with the United States, we blamed state tactics and steroids. Now that China has caught the United States, and surpassed the U.S. in golds, we blame population.

However, we never credit the United State's population, both in number and diversity, as the reason for U.S. athletes' success. Between financial resources, society's fanaticism with sports and sheer population, the only surprise is that the United States is not more dominant in the Olympic Games. However, according to a per capita medal count, the big winner in Beijing was Slovenia.

The United States disappointed on the Track and United States Track and Field officials announced that they would examine their efforts after the men and women dropped the baton in the 100m relays. However, in other sports, the United States exceeded expectations, playing for the gold medal in men's water polo, men's volleyball and women's volleyball. Despite these surprise finishes, not to mention those in Sabre and Rowing, China won more gold medals and closed the gap considerably in total medals (110 to 100).

Great Britain lacks the population of China and likely will be unable to threaten the United States and China for total medals in 2012. Its goal is to place in the top four in total medals, which it achieved in Beijing. However, its recent success in cycling and rowing give it hope. While the United States depends on its educational system and sheer size of population to win medals, other countries, including China, invest time and resources into the development of their next generation of athletes.

The U.S. system is, in some ways, still the model. As evidenced by the number of medalists in Track and Field and Swimming from outside the United States who attended a U.S. university, developing athletes through the school system works. However, most of these athletes were from poorer countries without the money to fund athlete development programs: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Zimbabwe, etc. Unfortunately, budget cuts may affect aspiring Olympians, as several universities have cut programs which have produced Olympians.

The countries investing in their own development systems saw even greater success. Australia features the Australian Institute of Sport which is the model for the rest of the world. A relatively small nation, population-wise, Australia finished fifth in total medals. China invested heavily in the development of its athletes. Its success in table tennis, diving and gymnastics is expected, but beach volleyball silver and bronze? With another four years to develop its young athletes, is there any doubt that China will lead in total medals and gold medals in 2012? Imagine what happens in the medal counts when they develop more swimmers to compete with the United States and Australia in the pool.

China not only spent billions to put on the Olympics, but the government spent billions to invest in sport and the infrastructure. According to Tim Farrey of ESPN, the Chinese government has paid to install 60,000 new outdoor basketball courts and plans to build 70,000 more. While it spent an obscene amount of money on the Bird's Nest, the Water Cube and the Opening Ceremonies, some of the expense is creating a better development program for its potential athletes.

When a country creates and finances a development system with a specific goal, they succeed. The Chinese results in sports as diverse as swimming and beach volleyball illustrate the importance of a development plan, as well as the finances and resources to make the plan into a reality. Great Britain's success in cycling is similar.

I emailed with an associate in the U.K. today about Great Britain and basketball development ahead of the 2012 Olympics. His response:

Some programmes (like Handball, Cycling and Rowing) have really gone out there to find currently undiscovered talent with solid transferable athletic talent to develop a new talent base for their sport. I like this idea as its an extension on LTAD principles - find athletes with good core movement skills and then work with them on sport-specific skills.

My only concern with the GB approach to preparing from 2012 (and basketball is a prime example of this) is that there seems little in the way of legacy planning. Let's assume that the GB Men and Women make the Olympic standard by 2012 by finding players with some ancestoral connection (or a British residency). What happens after 2012. The money will disappear and what will we have in the wake of the Games? Will their be academies, youth development programmes to support our ongoing inclusion in the future international competitions. Will there be a stronger competitive structure that can compete with the likes of the French, Spanish, Italian leagues (we're years away from competing with Australian and Russian levels of competition.

Nationally the picture is unclear, but there is little doubt that the heightened profile of sport will have create some positive ripples on the sporting landscape and for those of us working with younger athletes we have to find ways to take advantage of this once in a lifetime experience.

This has been my issue with the United States' response to its losses in 2002, 2004 and 2006. Rather than examine the system, the United States found a quick fix: it convinced Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd to join LeBron James and others and Jerry Colangelo got rid of the idea of USA Basketball as an NBA All-Star team. But, just as GB might not develop the future of the sport if it simply recruits second generation Britons living and playing abroad, how does adding Kobe Bryant fix USA Basketball's issues? After all, USA Basketball sponsors more than just the Senior Men's National Team.

Ultimately, basketball in the United States is fine. But, what about other sports? Is the infrastructure in place to build upon the USA's success in water polo, volleyball, women's rowing and women's soccer? Sure, the United States loses many of its top athletes to football, and many more play basketball, but with the size of its population, are there programs in place to attract, develop and train the next generation of athletes to sustain the U.S.'s success in team sports in 2008 and its traditional dominance in swimming and track and field? Or, were the failures in the relays and the disappointments of Tyson Gay, Lolo Jones and others foreshadowing of Olympics to come?

A decade ago, Great Britain made a commitment to developing its Cycling program:

The entire operation smacked of low expectations and even lower self-esteem - British Cycling looked, felt and acted unloved.

So when BC's new performance director Peter Keen stood up at the sport's annual conference a year later and said he wanted to make Britain the world's top Olympic cycling nation, many in the room wondered where they had found this guy. Such ambition and enthusiasm. It was all so, well, un-British.

Fast forward a decade, the sport is the jewel in our Olympic crown and the envy of the cycling world. It's very, very good and it knows it. Such confidence and success. It was all so, well, un-British.

Previously, there had been no system in place, no funding, no organization. Individuals succeeded or they failed.

Six years after that, in 1992, Chris Boardman won Britain's first Olympic cycling gold since 1920.

But Keen knew nothing had really changed.

"What Chris and I were doing in the early '90s was classic British alpinism," remembers Keen.

"He was just another one-off success. Leave no ropes, leave no trail. There was no system so there was no legacy.

"I saw then the challenge was to convert those highly motivated, highly talented individuals into a system."

Most people see a gold medal as evidence of a successful system. However, especially in an individual sport, one great athlete with an incredible work ethic can win a medal. However, what happens when he retires? What happens to U.S. beach volleyball when Misty May and Kerrie Walsh decide to start their families? What happens to Men's Volleyball when Lloyd Ball retires after setting in the last four Olympics? What happens when Kobe Bryant and Lebron James are too tired for London 2012? What happens when Michael Phelps retires from U.S. Swimming? Are there systems in place to create consistent programs?

"There is some magic in the cycling programme," Keen enthuses. "We managed to go beyond the individual and generate a critical mass of people pulling in the same direction. That's what you need. There can be no silos.

"Yes, the funding was a huge help. But it takes more than money. Success isn't a right - you have to strive for it."

He makes it sound simple enough but if it was that easy everybody would be doing it.

As Vern Gambetta says, the U.S. employs a survival of the fittest approach to athlete development. For the last 50 years, the approach worked pretty well and these Olympics are no different. However, as the U.S. surpasses its record for medals in a sport like fencing, what about the problems in boxing, a traditionally strong sport? As the U.S. appears to re-load in sports like women's soccer, why does men's soccer seem to tread water? As Phelps blows away the competition in the pool, what about the Aussie domination of the women's swimming relays or Jamaica's sweep in the women's 100m on the track?

Sure, the U.S. cannot win every medal. However, the question is whether the sports have systems to develop the next May or Phelps or Candace Parker or Abby Wombach or Monica Abbott or Lloyd Ball. Progressive sports nations - Australia, Canada, Great Britain, China, Japan, Russia - have systems in place to identify, train and develop promising athletes. It appears some U.S. sports have a similar program: NBC mentioned the U.S. Diving program in Indianapolis over and over, despite its lack of success in these Olympics. However, without a system or a plan, the U.S. depends on its schools to produce the next generation of athletes at a time when budget problems lead to cuts in Physical Education and universities cut back their athletic budgets (much of which goes to football). Can the U.S. stay atop the medal count without changes to its system? Is remaining an athletic power important in this age? Should we worry who will replace the dominant May/Walsh team on the beach or who will produce the next dominant 400m runner to carry the torch? Or, should we continue to rely on our population and our universities and train the top performers who matriculate through this system?