Aug 26 2008
No Gold Medals for War, Occupation & Genocide
Editorial
By Gideon Polya   

Translation

Olympic Medal Tally AnalyzedImage

The top dozen countries in terms of 5 or more Gold medals were the host nation China (#1, 51 Gold medals), the US (#2, 36), Russia (#3, 23), the UK (#4; 19; the next Olympic host nation), Germany (#5, 16), Australia (#6, 14), South Korea (#7, 13), Japan (#8, 9), Italy (#9, 8), France (#10, 7), Ukraine (#11, 7), the Netherlands (#12, 7), Jamaica (#13, 6), Spain (#14, 5) and Kenya (#15, 5).

The outcome of the Olympic Games as measured by the Olympic Medal Tally of the marvellous athletes involved is heavily determined by a number of major factors as briefly set out below.

1. Wealth i.e. how much countries invest in particular sports. This is best illustrated the remarkable success of China (#1 for Gold medals), as well as that of the US (#2), UK (#4) and Australia (# 6). China invested billions in the Olympic Games and both the UK (the next host) and China made intelligent “investment decisions” that are reflected in their Success. Australia  did disproportionately well in terms of population size due to its sports-mad culture and massive investment in science-based sports training through the Australian Institute of Sport.

2. Population i.e. the size of the genetic pool from which the athletes are drawn. The biggest gene pools in the top dozen are those of China (#1, 2005 population 1.3 billion), the US (#2, 300 million) and Russia (#3, 140 million).

3. Population genetic factors. Thus West African or West African-derived people (notably from the Caribbean and the Americas e.g. Jamaica, #13) do very well at short-term endurance events such as boxing and short-distance running while East African-derived people (notably from Ethiopia and Kenya, #15) do very well at long-term endurance events such as long distance running. However the bell-shaped curve of “numbers” versus “attainment” for each country for particular sports means that many other countries and regions  can also deliver athletics champions.

4. Sports culture and “cultural sport” are extremely important. Thus Australia (#6) is sports-mad with a high level of participation.  China (#1) has stepped up participation in sports. As indicated under population genetic factors above, particular populations go for what they are good at (e.g. long-distance running for East Africans). While most  countries have joined the “World Game” of football (soccer), the “top 15” at Beijing included 8 top football countries, namely  Russia (#3 in the Gold Medal Tally), the UK (#4), Germany (#5), Italy (#9), France (#10), the Ukraine (#11), the Netherlands (#12) and Spain (#14). Wrestling and weightlifting are major “cultural sports” in a swathe of Middle East and Asian countries from Turkey to Mongolia. In contrast, cricket was not an official Olympic event but is an extremely important sport in the UK (#4) and Australia (#6) as well as in countries not in the “top 15”, notably India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka.

5. Serendipity was important in many event outcomes. Thus astonishing baton-change failures by the Jamaican women and US men allowed lesser competitors to gain medals. Some swimming events were decided by as little as 0.01 second.

6. Socio-economic and geopolitical factors such as war, occupation, devastation  and genocide were extremely important. Thus of the “top 15” countries only China (#1), Jamaica (#13) and Kenya (#15) were not involved in the invasion and occupation of other countries in the 21st century and Russia (#3) only recently invaded Georgia (and then mostly withdrew) in response to genocidal, civilian targeting, US- and Israeli-backed Georgian invasion of South Ossetia and destruction of the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. All 11 of the other “top 15” countries have been  variously  involved in the ongoing Iraqi Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 2 million, refugees 4.5 million) and/or the ongoing Afghan Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 3-6 million, 4 million refugees). In contrast, lack of performance at the Beijing Olympics can be directly related to colonial, neo-colonial or current  devastation by imperialist powers. Thus Occupied Afghanistan and Mauritius (which hosts the poor people who were 100% ethnically cleansed from Diego Garcia by the UK and the US) each won a Bronze medal but Occupied Iraq (soccer Asian Cup winner in 2007), Occupied Haiti, Occupied Somalia, Occupied Palestine and Pakistan (whose Waziristan villages are being bombed by the US) gained no medals of any kind. 

For a detailed breakdown of Beijing Olympics involvement by country see here: for the latest on the Beijing Olympics medal tally – subject to drug tests – see Yahoo. Image

The superb Beijing Olympics finished with China leading the World in the Olympic medal tally (51 Gold, 100 Total) over the US (36, 110), Russia (23, 72), the UK (19, 47), Germany (16, 41), Australia (14, 46), South Korea (13, 31), Japan (9, 25), Italy (8, 28), France (7, 40), the Ukraine (7, 27), Netherlands (7, 16), Jamaica (6, 11), Spain (5, 18), Kenya (5, 14), Belarus (4, 19), Romania (4, 8), Ethiopia (4, 7), Canada (3, 18), Poland (3, 10), Hungary (3,10), Norway (3, 10), Brazil (3, 15), Czech Republic (3, 6), Slovakia (3, 6), New Zealand (3, 9), Georgia (3, 6), Cuba (2, 24), Kazakhstan (2, 13), Denmark (2, 7),  Mongolia (2, 4), Thailand (2, 4), North Korea (2, 6), Argentina (2, 6), Switzerland (2, 6), and Mexico (2, 3). I’ll call this Group A – the group of countries that generally includes the top past Olympics performers and all the countries we expect to score gold medals because of national wealth and size (China, the US, the UK, Germany, Japan, Italy, France and the Ukraine),   wealth coupled with keen sporting traditions (Australia, Netherlands, Spain, Belarus, Romania, Canada, Poland, Hungary, Norway, Brazil, Czech Republic, Slovakia, New Zealand, Argentina and Switzerland) and much poorer countries with well-established track records in particular sports that relate to the genetic predispositions of their populations (e.g. Ethiopia and Kenya in long-distance running and Cuba and Jamaica in short-distance running).

These successful countries were followed by a number of countries (I’ll call this Group B) who only gained 1 gold medal, namely Turkey (1 Gold, 8 Total), Zimbabwe (1, 4), Azerbaijan (1, 7), Uzbekistan (1, 6), Slovenia (1, 5), Bulgaria (1, 5), Indonesia (1, 5), Finland (1, 4), Latvia (1, 3), Belgium (1, 2), Dominican Republic (1, 2), Estonia (1, 2), Portugal (1, 2), India (1, 2), and Iran (1, 2). Group B contains many countries that don’t lead the world in general sporting prowess but which are both very keen about and very good at particular sports such as football (Turkey, Belgium, Portugal and Iran), weightlifting and wrestling (Turkey and Iran) and cricket (Zimbabwe and India).

My Group C contains countries that obtained no Gold medals but which nevertheless scored Bronze and/or Silver medals, namely Armenia (6 non-Gold medals), Sweden (5 non-Gold medals), Croatia (5), Lithuania (5), Chinese Taipei (4), Greece (4), Nigeria (4), Austria (3), Ireland (3), Serbia (3), Algeria (2), Bahamas (2),  Trinidad and Tobago (2), Colombia (2), Kyrgyzstan (2), Morocco (2), Tajikistan (2),  Chile (1), Ecuador, (1),  Iceland (1), Malaysia (1), Netherlands Antilles (1), Singapore (1), South Africa (1), Sudan (1), Vietnam (1), Afghanistan (1), Egypt (1), Israel (1), Mauritius (1), Moldova (1), Venezuela (1),  and  Togo (1).

Group C is similar to Group B in that it contains some countries with well-known expertise in particular sports notably short-distance running (Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria, and Bahamas), long-distance running (Algeria), tennis (Croatia, Serbia, Sweden, and Austria), football (Sweden, Croatia, Serbia, Greece, Nigeria, Columbia), weightlifting  (Armenia), wrestling (Armenia, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan) and winter sports (Sweden and Austria).

Finally,  my Group D contains  countries who sent athletes to the Beijing Olympics but which gained no medals at all, namely  Albania, American Samoa, Andorra,  Angola, Antigua/Barbuda, Aruba, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Brunei Darusallam, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cape Verde,  Cayman Islands, Central African Republic,  Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Côte D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast),  Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti,  Dominica, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guam, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iraq, Jordan, Kiribati, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia (FYROM), Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Monaco, Montenegro, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Rwanda, St Kitts/Nevis, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Swaziland, Syria, Tanzania, Timor Leste, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Virgin Islands, Yemen and Zambia.

All the Group D countries (with the exception of Peru and Saudi Arabia and the tiny European principalities of Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco and San Marino) have been subject to European colonial occupation and its horrendous consequences in the post-war era.

For a detailed history of the US contribution to this carnage see William Blum’s “Rogue State”. For a detailed history and “body count” of this horrendous burden of war, occupation, devastation and genocide imposed by the “democratic Nazi” imperialist powers since 1945 see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1905”: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya. 1990-2005 avoidable deaths (excess deaths,deaths that should not have happened) in non-European countries total 1.2 billion, this including a Muslim Holocaust involving 0.6 billion avoidable deaths.

It is useful to sum the 1950-2005 excess deaths in all the countries occupied by foreign occupiers in the post-war era – country-by-country analysis. Most of the perpetrators have been European countries and are listed below alphabetically with both their number of Gold Medals from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and their “body count” of 1990-2005 excess deaths in the countries they occupied as major occupiers for some time in the post-war era (excluding Germany and Japan as occupied countries): Australia (14 Gold, 2.1 million in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands); Belgium (1 Gold, 36.0 million); Ethiopia (4 Gold, 1.8 million in Eritrea); France (7 Gold, 142.3 million); Indonesia (1 Gold, 0.694 million in Timor Leste); Iraq (0 Gold, 0.1 million in Kuwait); Israel (0 Gold, 23.9 million); Netherlands (7 Gold, 71.6 million); New Zealand (3 Gold, 0.04 million in Samoa); Pakistan (0 Gold, 52.2 million in Bangladesh); Portugal (1 Gold, 23.5 million); Russia (23 Gold, 37.1 million); South Africa (0.7 million in Namibia); Spain (5 Gold, 8.6 million); Turkey (1 Gold, 0.05 million in Cyprus); the UK (19 Gold, 727.4 million); and the US (36 Gold, 82.2 million).

For the record, neither China (51 Gold medals, Iran (1 Gold medal) nor India (1 Gold medal) have occupied any other country over the last few centuries.

If there were Gold Medals for War, Occupation and Genocide, the leading Gold medallists scoring over 1 million on this 1990-2005 excess mortality score would be, in descending order, the UK, France, the US, Netherlands, Pakistan, Russia, Belgium, Israel, Portugal and Spain  … or if Gold, Silver and Bronze were given for “total body count” the UK would get Gold, France the Silver and the US the Bronze. 

Dr Gideon Polya,  MWC News Chief political editor, published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003), and is currently writing a book on global mortality ---
Other articles by this author 


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Comments (6)
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1. 26-08-2008 11:30
WOW, much appreciated 4 the in-depth thorough analysis of the Olympic Medal Tally. I am truly enlightened! Thanks.
Guest
2. 26-08-2008 15:15
China hasn't occupied anyone? I guess you haven't heard of Tibet. 
Of course Communist countries can do no wrong in your analysis, so it's no surprise you hadn't noticed. How many excess deaths was Mao responsible for?
Guest
Dave
3. 26-08-2008 16:54
China does NOT occupy, US, UK DO
Re post #2. 
 
1. Consult the Encyclopaedia Britannica for 1911 and you will discover that Tibet and Sinjuan were regarded then as part of China: \"CHINA, a country of eastern Asia, the principal division of the Chinese empire. In addition to China proper the Chinese Empire includes Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and Sin-kiang (East Turkestan, Kulja, Dzungaria, &c., i.e. all the Chinese dependencies lying between. Mongolia on the north and Tibet on the south)\" (see ) i.e. Tibet was regarded 100 years ago as integral part of China as were Scotland, Ireland and Wales as integral parts of Great Britain. 
 
2. The United Nations regards Tibet as part of China (e.g. see: UNICEF map of China
 
3. The Dalai Lama, spiritual head of the Buddhist Tibetans ALSO regards Tibet as part of China - but argues for more autonomy. 
 
4. Amnesty International regards Tibet as part of China but argues for transparency, access and rigorous respect for human rights - a position with which I of course concur on all counts. 
 
5. China occupied Tibet in the 13 th century, around the time that the English were expanding into Scotland, Wales and Ireland - and 600 years before the US seized the West from the Indians, seized the South West from Mexico and proceeded on its program of disposession and genocide that continues to this day from Occupied Haiti to Occupied Afghanistan in the border of China (read William Blum\'s \"Rogue State\" and for the appalling body count read \"Body Count\" (see: Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950\"). 
 
Legal national sovereignty under International Law is determined by the UN and NOT by the CIA, the Racist Religious Right Republican (R4) Bushi-ites, the racist Zionists (RZs) running the United States of Israel, the lying Mainstream media of the Western Murdochracies, or the racist neo-Bush-ites. 
 
At the Beijing Olympics there were NO countries that had been occupied by China EVER in its 5 millennium history (although it had the inevitable border wars). 
 
On the other hand at the Beijing Olympics there were: 
(a) 6 Occupied Countries being currently partly or wholly occupied by the US, its cowardly, racist allies or its surrogates (Occupied Haiti, Occupied Somalia, Occupied Palestine, Occupied Syria, Occupied Iraq, Occupied Afghanistan); 
 
(b) 5 countries variously previously or currently occupied in part or in whole by war criminal, US-backed, racist, genocidal, racist Zionist (RZ)-run Apartheid Israel (Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria); 
 
(b) scores of racist, genocidal, \"democratic Nazi\" countries variously involved in the violence, occupation and ethnic cleansing associated with the ONGOING Iraqi Genocide and the ONGOING Afghan Genocide (notably 11 of the top 15 gold medal winners). 
 
As variously reported in the Shanghai Daily some months ago (and on MWC News: US-occupied Afghan infant death rate 10 times that of China and Tibet, Information Clearing House: Afghan Genocide and other decent media): \"the most fundamental human right is the right to life. According to data from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the UN Population Division, China has made huge advances in dramatically reducing mortality rate and infant mortality rate in both the Tibetan Autonomous Region and in China as a whole and to similar levels. 
 
Thus the \"annual under-5 year old infant death rate\" is about the same (about 0.6%) in Tibet and China as a whole as compared to 6.2% for US- and Australia-occupied Afghanistan, 0.12% for Occupier Australia and 0.16% for Occupier United States. 
 
The annual infant death rate in Occupied Afghanistan (6.2%) is 51 times that in Occupier Australia, 38 times that in Occupier US and similar to the “annual death rate” of 10.2% for Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese in World War 2 – a war crime for which key Japanese leaders were tried and hanged.\"
Guest
gpolya@bigpond.comNOSPAM! ">Dr Gideon Polya
4. 26-08-2008 18:35
re post 2
Dave's post must have touched a nerve, Gideon.  
Excepting HH The Dalai Lama, who for reasons we can guess at will play a careful hand for Tibet, the authorities you quote in your reply are a tad interesting. What's all this from that imperialist encyclopediaic tome? 
 
Hieronymus
Registered
5. 26-08-2008 19:47
UN & UN ESCAP data sources
Re post #5 by Hieronymous and \"the authorities\" I quote.  
 
Read the references quoted in my reply and you find LINKS to the PRIMARY reference sources (the UN Population Division and the UN ESCAP (UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) - they are not a \"tad interesting\" but rather \"extremely authoritative\".  
 
Thus from “World Population Prospects: the 2006 Revision Population Database” of the UN Population Division (see: UN Population Division ), we find that for 2007 (2005-2010) the “under-5 year old infant deaths per 1,000 births” is 29 for China (and a similar value for Tibet as indicated by UN ESCAP data) as compared to values in China’s “good outcome” neighbours of Russia (21), Vietnam (23) and Kazakhstan (29) and in its “poor outcome neighbours” of Mongolia (54), Kyrgyzstan (64), North Korea (65), Bhutan (65), Laos (67), Nepal (72), Tajikistan (78), India (79), Myanmar (97) and US Alliance-occupied Afghanistan (235). 
 
By way of comparison, for 2007 the “under-5 year old infant deaths per 1,000 births” were in the range 5 - 8 for the US (8), Australia (6) and other Western Occupiers of Afghanistan. 
 
These infant mortality statistics can also be presented as “annual under-5 year old death rate percentage” (the percentage of under-5 year olds dying each year) which for 2007 was 0.61% for China (and SIMILAR to this for Tibet according to UN ESCAP data)  
UNESCAP,  
as compared to a SHOCKING 6.2% for US- and Australia-occupied Afghanistan. 
 
The quote from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica simply makes the point that a top authoritative source in the World saw Tibet as part of China in 1911 just as International Law and the UN (e.g. UNICEF) does in 2008.
Guest
gpolya@bigpond.comNOSPAM! ">Dr Gideon Polya
6. 28-08-2008 16:22
Bahrain, Cameroon, Panama, Tunisia Gold
Correction to my article: Bahrain, Cameroon, Panama, and Tunisia also won one Gold medal each at the 2008 Beijing Olympics - however while they they haven't invaded anyone else ever they have been occupied by the British, French, Americans and French, respectively, in the post-1945 era).
Guest
gpolya@bigpond.comNOSPAM! ">Dr Gideon Polya

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Tags:  Gideon Polya Olympic Medal War Occupation Genocide