Team USA Is Underachieving

Those are the facts.  Quite simply, they are not winning the medals they were projected to win.  As of press time, they lead all countries with 52 medals total.  However, in the all-important gold medal count, they are behind China -- oh, those overachieving Chinese! -- 22-19.  America leads in silvers with 20 ... which I believe is a symptom of the problem.

I believe I am correct in saying that Team USA has been the victim of many, many upsets so far these Olympics.  As I write this, according to FiveThirtyEight, our country has won 15 medals fewer than expected.  And while the website has not provided their prognostications, I can think anecdotally of the many times America was projected to win gold but had to settle for silver, or worse.

Unfortunately, I must point out, most of the upsets I can think of off the top of my head have come from women.  Female swimmers won only three gold: Katie Ledecky in her two longest races but was beaten by an Australian nipper named Ariarne Titmus in her two shortest, and Lydia Jacoby out of Seward, Alaska (and high school) with one of the very few surprise wins for Team USA.  Hannah Roberts was slated to win in BMX Freestyle but lost.  I think a beach volleyball that was expected to at least contend for bronze got bounced in the eighthfinals half a day ago.  And, most notably, because Simone Biles withdrew from competition, the women's gymnastics team settled for silver even though they were a lock for gold.  I am not happy about these results, at all.  But these are the, well, facts.

There are those of you who say I should not be caught up in this "USA!  USA!" jingoistic bandwagoning, the type of if-you're-not-first-you're-last mentality that was an enormous weight on Biles and caused swimmer Lily King to regard thinking that she had to settle for silver and bronze medals "bullshit."  First of all, I think there are people on the United States Olympic Committee whose job it is to count gold -- and if things don't turn around, they'll be out of those jobs.  Second, this "obsession" with being first is rooted in the notion of American excellence, which, while it has caused many problems for ourselves and the world, has also resulted in this country still being, at its best, better than any other on Earth.  Don't blame The Media for this, in other words; they track medals because the fans at home track medals, and you can bet there are a lot of Olympics fans who are dismayed by the underachievement so far by Team USA.

Finally, and this is a tit-for-tat argument that will lead me and other people down a bad rabbit hole if we continue to nitpick over this, these athletes gain fame and, frankly, fortune from viewers like us.  And many of us want to see Team USA win -- not finish second or just podium, but win.  We are conditioned to root for and expect winners, and I will also bet that those athletes are conditioned to look out for #1, as well.  If you expect us to cheer you on feverishly for grabbing silver or bronze -- and we're not related to you -- then I think it's fair to say that we'll downplay any gold medals you win.  If you insist the color of the medal doesn't count, then we will just be happy that you competed.  Enthusiasm for grabbing any medal will then appropriately be meh.  And we won't throw money at you once you come home from Tokyo either, OK?

Team USA can solve schism this very easily: Just fucking win.