This is boxing bronze medalist Bruno Julie, a bantamweight who became the first ever Olympic medalist for the island nation of Mauritius, population 1.3 million. Mauritius was one of a handful of countries that won its first Olympic medal at the Beijing Games. With athletes from 87 nations receiving medals, an unprecedented number of countries earned a gold, silver or bronze. The previous high was 80 countries earning medals at the 2000 Olympics.
Whether the high number of nations winning medals is a sign that sports are becoming more globalized, or whether this just happened to be a year with a lot of good athletes from small countries, people like Bruno Julie make for the best stories during the Olympics, the athletes who will leave Beijing and return home to a hero's welcome. He deserves it.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-25-2008 @ 12:15AM
George B Vieto said...
Three cheers for Irving Saladino who is the first Panamainan to win a gold medal in the Olympics.
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8-25-2008 @ 1:50AM
Tom D. said...
I agree. The small country winners should get more attention. Their accomplishments impress me much more than those of the big-country power houses --US, China, Russia, etc. The obstacles to their efforts are incredible. No money, no place to train, no decent equipment, no coach, and they still medal. When the games came to my town there were stories of teams that couldn't afford to stay in the village, had no uniforms, etc.Some of them won medals nonetheless.
The chauvinism of the US media is appalling. They are ignoring the fact that the athlete from Monaco or Mauritius who medals may be the president or prime minister in 15 or 20 years. I'd bet a quarter the CIA has a file on these folks.
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8-25-2008 @ 7:53AM
Alan Newman said...
It was nice to see that participants from 80 countries won medals. Based on NBCs television coverage, you would have thought only a few countries were participating. The sports coverage of Jim McKay is missed. Many of the athletes struggled to get to the games. Many of the athletes do not train in theses multi-million dollar (maybe billion) facilities. And it also seems that many of the non-American athletes train in the Us and rareley see their homelands. Jim McKay covered the great athletes and those that just wanted to be there. How can one forget seeing the ski jumper from Great Britain or the Skier from Egypt. Ant then there was Munich. TV is only for the ratings. Did anyone see the men's marithon race where the winner runs into the stadium? Did anyone see a baseball or softball game? Did anyone see archery (if it was there)? Well if you didn't see BAseball of Sorfball this time, you won't see it again. And couldn't some of the billions of dollars spent on these olympics been used to feed people in China or Asia or Africa.
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8-25-2008 @ 10:42AM
JDBreeze1 said...
To Alan: Yes, the men's marathon was shown live in prime time - tons of people saw it. Several baseball games were on MSNBC during the day, though I did not see a softball game. And I did see archery too. The days of the Olympics only being on one channel are long gone - if all you watched was NBC you missed a LOT.
8-25-2008 @ 11:12AM
Maveness said...
Some of those things you mentioned were on during primetime on NBC (like the marathon - it's just one of the last things, when people have burned out), but there was a *lot* missing. And not missing just because it was on another channel. I love track and field events like the long jump, the triple jump, etc. And those were overlooked because there wasn't a U.S. competitor in the final.
Also important, because I think you're right on the nose about the Jim McKay era getting it right, is the fact that they focused on stories that often had nothing to do with the games, or focused on stories over and over to the detriment of covering other sports. How many times did they have to rehash the all around in women's gymnastics? I saw more than interview with them when one would have sufficed. Also, those segments on China meant we didn't cover other sports. I'd rather see just the final of all the sports than every single round from opening heats to the final. But on the flip side, take the time to show the stories that are inspiring. They did it with Eric the Eel a few years back. We didn't see his race live, but they realized the importance of what he was trying to accomplish and showed what he'd done which was an accomplishment for *him*.
8-27-2008 @ 12:04PM
kellia said...
Some people. like me, were STUCK watching NBC because I don't own cable and you had to list a cable TV provider that was partnered with NBC in order to get the coverage available on computer. So I didn't get to see baseball or archery and had to settle for taped reruns of everything, often knowing who the winners were in advance because of other news outlets giving the results during the day. My NBC affiliate kept to its schedule of Saturday cartoons and Sunday politicians and more beach volleyball, especially the scantily clad women, than I cared to see.
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