Citius Altius Fortius

Gold. The international monetary standard, the amount of which, we depend upon to give a value of worth to any given thing. Even talent.

I am of course, referring to the Olympics. Ah the Olympics. A time for athletes around the world to show their stuff in hopes of bringing pride and honor to their team, their country, and maybe even a little for themselves. Citius. Altius. Fortius. Swifter. Higher. Stronger. Congratulations by the way, to Michael Phelps for achieving something that no one has done in the history of the Olympics. The advertising endorsements he could milk out of this will probably ensure that he is set for life or at least until the next Olympics where he can break another record.

It's a bit sad though. The Olympics have strayed far from what their original purpose had been designed for by the ancient Greeks. Each ring, as you may know, is linked together with a variation of colors. There are five, which signify the five known inhabited continents and the colors red, blue, white, green, yellow and black were chosen because every flag in the world has at least one of those colors. What all this symbolism means, is that the Olympics were meant (and still meant) to represent international cooperation through traditional sports and sportsmanship that every nation can understand, no matter what their color, religion, ethnicity, or language.

Yet the Olympics have been used, simply as an event on a larger, grander, political agenda. Unfortunately the Olympic committee thought they could do the same thing to China as they did Korea back in 1988 or many other countless examples where the Olympics were 'strategically' placed to pressure the given country into moving foreword in whatever fault they seem to be stuck in.

This is no fun. Especially when human right violations and the whole fact that China's government is still very much like the communist government we got into so many ideological wars about. Reporters being kidnapped, the audiences being either shunned or censored, Chinese athletes being younger than they're reported, and of course, shamming even the opening ceremonies by having a more attractive Chinese girl lip syncing the opening song while the 'ugly one' was back stage. Of course, I'm sure to a certain extent the U.S. is guilty of doing these same things but back to my point.

The Olympics are about international unity and sportsmanship. Which is also why America should stop with the Michael Phelps. Here's my take on Michael. He did great. I'm proud an American accomplished such a feat and I realize American media is all about seeing which AMERICAN won in each event so let me ask everyone to realize that Phelps was awesome, but we should not let his accomplishments take away from everyone's else who competed in the Olympics. I was watching Women's crew and America kicked ass. Woots. They won by a landslide and it was EPIC. Next up was Men's and I think they won as well, I can't remember. But NBC decided instead of having an interview with either team, they went straight back to talk about what type of pasta Michael Phelps ate when he was a kid.

"As unbelievable as Michael Phelps’ 8 gold medals are, let’s keep things into perspective: he competes in a sport where they hand out medals like free lunches. He obviously is dominating his sport unlike anyone since Mark Spitz, but we should hesitate on handing him the title of “Greatest Olympian” because of how many medals are available to win. Someone like Lisa Leslie has 4 golds in as many Olympics because she can only win one every year, but she’s not even in the running."

-Rene Ramos