For many decades, the quadrennial Olympic games were grand moments of patriotism. Even as the Soviet teams used mountains of government money to train their athletes, our plucky amateurs somehow kept winning. There was a reason the Miracle on Ice was a miracle. Of late, though, our athletes are no longer amateurs; the Soviets are gone; we worship at the Chinese shrine; the Olympics are on every two years and broadcast 24/7, making for complete over-saturation; and too many of our Olympic athletes hate the country they’re representing. For that reason, those Americans who love their country the most have cared the least when Americans have fallen flat in Tokyo.
The first occasion for an anti-Olympic celebration came when the women’s soccer team suffered a humiliating defeat to Sweden, with the Swedish team beating the Americans 3-0. That score, in a game renowned for sometimes having only one score during the entire game, was a complete blow-out. The Americans didn’t just lose, they were humiliated. And as many conservatives felt, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of self-centered, unpleasant, unpatriotic women. Brigitte Gabriel’s response is representative of the conservative view:
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