Sydney 2000: Ordinary games or American apathy?

In my ongoing attempt to avoid doing work during the first few weeks of school, I have found myself, more often than not, flipping from NBC to MSNBC to CNBC trying to catch bits and pieces of the Sydney Olympics. For some reason, however, there seems to be a problem.

No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to get excited about what's going on "down under."

Don't get me wrong, watching the games of the 27th Olympiad makes for perfectly good procrastination. At the same time, though, the type of excitement that surrounded the 1996 Atlanta Olympics does not seem to be present in most people — at least not me.

Looking at all that has happened so far in Australia, it is certainly hard to argue that the 2000 Olympic games have not been eventful. Just look at what's taken place already:

In the course of nearly two weeks of competition, we've seen world records shattered in a number of swimming events. We've watched Australians Ian Thorpe and Cathy Freeman win gold medals and become instantly transformed into national heroes.

We've seen the American men's soccer team advance to the medal round for the first time in Olympic history while watching U.S. gymnasts struggle to match past performances.

We've seen Maurice Greene and Marion Jones dominate the field in the men's and women's 100 meters, while once again watching Michael Johnson toy with the rest of the world in the men's 400m.

We've seen the 2000 version of the U.S. men's basketball "Dream Team" dunk all over its hapless opponents, while watching its female counterparts do the same — just with layups.

We've even seen controversy — from the disqualification of Romanian gold-medal gymnast Andreea Raducan because of her Sudafed habit, to the public accusations made by the International Olympic Committee against American shot-put champion C.J. Hunter.

And to top it all off, Tommy Lasorda even helped to make the world a little safer for democracy by leading the American baseball team to a gold-medal win over the heavily-favored Cuban squad.

What more could we ask for in the first Olympics of the new century?

A victory over the Chinese in ping-pong (excuse me, table tennis)?

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

That certainly is out of reach, but what about all these other great accomplishments by the world's athletes? Have we been spoiled by the one-footed landing of Keri Strug in Atlanta? By the amazing double gold earned by Michael Johnson in 1996?

That may be part of it, but as far as I can tell, it is more our attitude toward the rest of the world that has made these Olympic games so ordinary.

As Americans, we watch the Olympics with the expectation that we should dominate in every sport — well, maybe not table tennis. But for the most part, we assume that as the world's only economic and political superpower, we should be the world's only sport superpower.

As you can tell from looking at the medal count, the United States has outperformed the other nations of the world in the Sydney Olympics. By pouring an increasing amount of money into our youth development programs in coming years, we will certainly begin to challenge the world in a greater number of sports.

What does all this mean for the future of the games?

Hopefully it won't mean that we turn the Olympics into a showcase for "professional" athletes from the world's wealthiest nations. We already see professional basketball, tennis and soccer players representing their countries. Pretty soon, we may see the same in other sports.

Don't get me wrong. I want to the see the U.S. succeed on the international stage as much as any other American. At the same time, however, I want to make sure that the amateur essence of the Olympics remains unscathed.

It is this aspect of the games that truly makes them special.

For countries like Ethiopia — currently suffering from a horrible famine — one gold medal in Sydney is enough to lift the spirit of a nation. For countries like the United States, one gold medal is just another drop in the bucket.

With all that the U.S. has as a nation, I don't know if we'll ever truly appreciate what the Olympics are all about. After all, it takes an awful lot for Americans to stand up and take notice — especially when we're watching on tape delay.