Every Anti-American Olympian Who Trashed Trump Just Got Horrible News Right Before Returning
To US It seems all that worrying about being invited
to the White House and of making a public spectacle of their hatred for President Donald
Trump and Vice President Mike Pence has not worked out so well for the US Olympic team.
This year American athletes won just 23 medals in Pyeongchang at the 2018 Winter Games.
The U.S. Olympic Committee states this is far below the committee's minimum expectations.
This Olympics has seen the lowest amount of medals since the U.S. won just 13 medals at
the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.
Now a top U.S. Olympic Committee official is promising to re-evaluate the organization's
winter sports program after such an abysmal showing where the U.S. brought home just nine
gold medals, eight silver medals, and six bronze medals.
That is only 7.5% of the total medals available to be won for those competing.
This has left little of interest to watch many nights on TV over that of previous Olympics
causing a ratings slump for NBC.
It seems Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen did little to help the ratings
slump either with only one brief interview where Pence said little and his wife Karen
said nothing at all after attending the Opening Ceremony.
Many Americans cannot blame Pence as without even opening his mouth, he managed to become
a target for openly gay athletes Gus Kenworthy and Adam Rippon.
While U.S. skier and 2010 Olympic gold medalist Lindsay Vonn personally attacked President
Trump directly.
According to Fox News – The Associated Press, citing an internal USOC document, reported
that the organization had set a target of 37 medals in Pyeongchang, with a minimum expectation
of 25.
Winning 37 medals would have matched the then-record number won by the U.S. in Vancouver in 2010.
The USOC has stated that they intend to look into the direct effects of the many very political
and highly charged commentary that was highly visible during this year's Winter Games
as well.
Many believe this year's disappointing performance at the 2018 Winter Games was a direct reflection
of nasty attitudes, anti-Americanism, negative political overtones, and an entitlement mentality
that was far too prevalent this year.
Pyeongchang also came at a difficult time for USOC officials, who have faced sexual
abuse scandals in gymnastics and swimming back home.
But dealing with those issues might ultimately affect performance too.
Add to that a significant amount of politicization and mouth running from U.S. athletes and it
has not been a banner year by any stretch.
Historically, USOC leaders have acted as a distant overseer to the national governing
bodies that run each specific sport.
Now, they will probably step in and exert tighter control.
The U.S. Olympic Committee's chief of sports performance, Alan Ashley did not mince words
when he spoke of the unsettling and downright disappointing showing put forth by the U.S.
team at the USOC's closing news conference on Sunday.
He acknowledged there was room for significant improvement amongst the U.S. Olympic team,
stating – "We're going to take a hard look at what occurred here.
Everything we're responsible for, and everything that is basically under my responsibility,
is focused on how to help our top athletes achieve success.
I'm accountable for that, and I'm not going to shy away from that."
At the press conference, Ashley was joined by four U.S. medalists, as well as Lindsay
Vonn though she did not medal this year, placing 6th instead.
Just a few days prior to the press conference Vonn gave an impassioned plea to not judge
everything in accordance with the number of medals collected for the U.S. Vonn stated
– "To quantify it in how many medals you have is not appropriate and doesn't respect
the athletes and what they've put in to be in these games."However, Ashley promised
to break it down when he returns to the United States to discover what went wrong and how
to fix it.
He hopes to use the information to improve U.S. performance in time for the next Winter
Games.
He did also offer encouragement stating he derived hope from the 35 athletes who finished
fourth through sixth over the two-plus weeks in South Korea.
He stated – "It's not as though we were in these situations where you're saying,
'Oh, we're going to do this great achievement,' and then we were 20th, 40th, 70th, whatever.
I want to help our athletes achieve everything they're capable of.
We come here to compete.
Everyone can do predictions.
And if we just live with predictions, then I guess we don't need to go to the Olympics."
Ashley states he intends to analyze everything up to and including what the USOC might hope
to emulate from watching other countries that were far more successful at this year's
Olympic Winter Games.
The U.S. athletes may learn much from countries like Norway that closed with a whopping 39
medals setting a new Winter Olympics record.
Their 39 medals broke the record set by the U.S. eight years ago.
Much could also be learned from countries such as Germany which took home 31 medals
or even Canada.
Canada launched its "Own the Podium" program just prior to the Vancouver Games, had 29,
showing a significant improvement as well.
Every single one of those countries also had help with funding from their government, Ashley
noted.
The USOC is privately funded.
Currently, the USOC spends more than $60 million during any given Olympic cycle in its effort
to support winter athletes and their sports organizations.
Since Ashley took over the organization, he has led the organization in placing more emphasis
on funneling money towards sports that have a higher potential to medal as opposed to
developing pipelines for any less successful sport to grow.
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