You also forgot Spain, Portugal, Israel--which hosted the International 2 years ago, Brazil, Argentina, Morocco, Russia, a number of the Arab states, Greece, Sweden and I think Denmark but it might be Norway, Holland and some others who I've forgotten...We mustn’t forget Taiwan, Indonesia and of course Korea and China…The last two did very well in the shooting sports…CByrneIV wrote:One must admit, the practical shooting disciplines are utterly dominated by the U.S.
The only other countries that tend to be consistently competitive in the few truly international competitions (IPSC does a decent job of being international; IDPA less so) are the U.K., Canada, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Australia, the Philippines, and South Africa; and for most of them it's because they field police and military teams.
I'm not sure you can really build an Olympic sport with 10 teams.
There is enough there for a fair representation of the world's countries as NOT EVERY country HAS TO BE represented at and/or in ALL the games according to the statutes...Prime examples is the Jamaican bobsled team when Calgary hosted the Winter Olympics...and when Russia and at a later Olympics the US boycotted and refused to attend let alone participate in altogether…
They also have to want to play…they might not have the athlete base to draw from, the games may be totally foreign to them, they might be able to afford the training, building the training facility(s) and/or the participation at the games due to monetary concerns…How many countries were there that during the walk on opening night had only one person and a standard bearer or maybe four, five or six including the flag person…I believe two countries fielded only judges or referees or some such official…Not every country can have a base of 250+ million people, usually healthy, people, to draw from and where a State’s Minimum Hourly Wage is what some people live on for a week…The government can’t feed themselves how they going to field any athletes except from the rich and healthy…
I’m surprised at how well the Canadians did in these last games, in all sports, as funding hadn’t trickled down to the athletes or sports committees who oversee the training and rules and regulations…If an athlete has to work two jobs just so they can train is ludicrous to say the least…I’m not saying that it should be a free ride all the way but some funding has to be made available for them and their training centers shouldn’t be closed down like the 10M air pistol champ from Toronto had done to her a fortnight before she was to leave…They, the two Shooting Committees, figured to have sent either of my daughters to the Olympics in 10m pistol or singles trap would have been around $85,000+ per person to cede them through the four years excluding airfare and the cost of ammunition!
We would have had to come up with at least $20,000 (to maybe $25,000) per child in China just for admissions, room & board, airfare, equipment and a spare and luckily most of the tryout games were held here or within close driving distance so additional costs were a lot less the having to fly to every competition ( six of us, with four contestants, in one van is a lot cheaper then airfare and car rental)…I’m extremely proud of them even though they didn’t make the teams but they certainly tried and came damn close just like their dad did when trying for a berth at the 1967 Pan Am Games in Winnipeg and the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City…I made it to the finals and they were eliminated in the pre-finals (semi) but they are both still very young and will be able to try for six maybe seven more Olympics…
The prowess might be high in the “tactical” gunsports within the USA but the other teams didn’t fare badly at the International events the last few years…I used to check out the results on S T I’s site--and the Chi-Comm and former Comm countries (Russia & Ukraine) did pretty damn good in the precision shooting…
They now have the new water sports—wind or sailboards, surfing and whitewater kayak--snowboards, ping pong that have snuck their ways into competition…Judo was there since WW2 and now karate has become recognized…So long as people continue to design weird and wonderful playthings, regardless of what they are, and two or more people can compete against themselves and the other guys then new sports will be added to the Games…Summer luge—one person sled (skateboard actually)—down a crooked hill side is a thrill sport as is skateboarding and roller/inline hockey or any of the “X” games like BMX bikes are all being considered or have been added to the Games—maybe for the time being as spectator sport only status but they are at least there...The gold medal for “pingy ponga” goes to……….(insert name)!
There are certain sports that have to be on the roster even though they have no military baring anymore, javelin, shot-put, discus, fencing, Pentathlon, decathlon...Remember the basis for the games was prowess of weapons, to be competed against the Kings’ champions and stuff like that…Same as the Scottish Highland Games with the hammer, rock and Caber tossing which were meant to kill or to inflict serious and grave injury on their opponent(s)…
I just found out today that the head of the US Pentathlon group is the actor Dolph Lundgren who originally came to the USA to study at MIT on a Fulbrite Scholarship in chemical engineering...Who'd have thunk it?
