I am admittedly not super-nationalistic about the Olympics. I almost enjoy it more when someone from a tiny country wins a gold than when an American wins.
Olympic medal counts are a function of 3 interrelated factors.
1) Population
2) Organization of sports programs
3) Financial commitment
#1 is clearly the most important as the US and China being 1-2 shows, but without #2 and #3, population alone won't get you to the medal stand very often as the India and Indonesia (#2 and #4 in population) can attest, though I suspect if there were a secondary school academic olympics, India would dominate.
The fact that Australia can even challenge the US in swimming is an amazing achievement considering the Aussies start out as about a 16:1 dog population-wise.
As for Basketball, most countries are lucky to have 1 or 2 NBA players on their roster. The entire US team is from the NBA.
So if I'm never heard chanting "USA, USA" during the Olympcis, its not that I'm not patriotic, its just that I think some things should trascend nationalism.
And for those who don't like countries renting olympic athletes, I guess you think Great Britain should give back their 1936 Gold Medal in Ice Hockey.
