Beijing: Rivalry Between US, China Emerges at Olympics

If you have been following the Olympics, chances are that you've noticed the emergence of a rivalry between us, the United States, and China.

First of all, I'd just like to say that this rivalry isn't a case of us arrogantly calling China, the host country, out because we need to pick a fight someone because we're sure we'll win, nor is it China calling us out because its historical culture tells them that they should hate us just because we don't live in their country. 

It's a simple case of two countries who are competing very closely with one another (the last medal count I saw had China ahead of us by one) and are relatively close to one another—we're across the Pacific Ocean from each other.  

Rivalries in sports are created because two teams—or, in our case, countries—are located close to each other, and because the two sides are highly competitive against each other.  So our rivalry is like countless other rivalries in sports, it's not a case of them calling us out, or vice versa. 

But now that the rivalry is going full force now, I'm into it.  Heck, I, like every other American, am rooting for every US competitor I see on TV like they're family.  But I get behind any US athlete competing against a Chinese athlete even more because China is giving us a great run for our money.  I want that gold medal to be ours.  Same with those silver and bronze medals.  The more medals the better.  I don't care about individual events—except for the men's basketball tournament, which we should win easily—I just want more medals than China. 

I imagine if the Chinese continue to win more medals and end up with the most, to our second-place finish, it will be a let-down here in the States because we're so used to winning everything related to sports.  But it wouldn't be nearly as disappointing here as it would be in China—they're the host country.  They're playing on their home turf—they have to uphold their honor and defend their country.  Think about how much of a downer it is when your favorite sports team loses on their home turf.  Exponentiate that feeling, and that's what the Chinese will feel like if they don't emerge from these Olympics as the country that won the most medals.  The Chinese feel like their only option is to win these Olympics.  Nothing else will cut it. 

As for the rest of the world, I think that they've noticed that we and the Chinese have developed a rivalry.  But they don't care.  They're worried about winning their own medals and representing their countries to the best of their ability.  They're concentrating on what they're doing.  They know that they should solely focus on their own events, not watching the USA and China duke it out in the dogfight of this Olympiad.

The rivalry is part we and China being extremely competitive with each other, part marketing hype.  Only we and they are actively monitoring the progression of the rivalry with an us-versus-them attitude, and the fact that the Olympics are being shown on a dozen different channels every day only adds to the unnecessary buzz.  But once the Olympics are over, if there's no controversial ending, the hype will quickly disappear, and our temporary rivalry with China will fade away.

Obviously we all want our athletes to win the Olympics—why would we not?  We can count on Michael Phelps winning three more gold medals for us.  We can also hopefully rely on our men's basketball team to win the gold.  Other than that, I'll admit I don't know who we can count on to win medals for us.  I haven't followed the Olympics closely enough to know.

But I do know is that we're in for a heated battle with China as the Olympics wind down and the medal counts go up.