I fully agree when you say "this argument is not in any way in the Olympic spirit" and "the Olympics is designed to promote peace and cooperation between the countries of the world even when they may have conflicts off the Olympic field" However in the end there is a winner and a loser and ranks are presented every Olympics (less important than the main reason why we have the Olympics), and when a country claims they have won the olympics when they didn't, that is something we can disagree with especially when your from China. (i am not chinese btw) To sum up, I'm shocked the way how the opening ceremony was given such negative comments repeatedly and nothing good was mentioned, even if one of the firework scene was a fakery or not, overall that was the best olympic opening ceremoney with out a doubt. I'm also disappointed the fact that the US can't take coming 2nd behind China, and have to claim they have won the olympics. It's sad theres such an argument but the truth is still the truth.

"For the commentors from other countries who are trying to incite the U.S. commentors..." "To the people from India - let me know when you get to five total medals. (And no, you can't combine the last three Olympics to get that total.)" In other words.... OH, You Mere Mortals of lesser known lands, How dare you speaketh Thus to the Mighty Americans? Bow down to the God of all Gods. WE ARE THE TRUE CHAMPIONS!

This argument is not in any way in the Olympic spirit! How many people arguing about this have ever seriously competed in a sport? If you have competed and won (and lost), at some level, you might see the Olympics differently. The Olympics is designed to promote peace and cooperation between the countries of the world even when they may have conflicts off the Olympic field. It IS NOT a substitute for war. Did you see any representative of a National Olympic Committee receiving recognition as the winning country? Of course countries like the USA, China and Russia can field huge teams and will always win the lions share of the medals whether they are gold, silver or bronze but it should never become all about the biggest teams. Does that detract from the accomplishment of some of the smaller teams like Thailand for example, who came away from the games with two gold and two silver? Falling back on some of the logic used in these arguments, the top 8 in each event are recognized by an Oympic Certificate, so maybe we should add all of those up too? Maybe we should divide the number of medals by the number of athletes each country had competing in the games. (Actually, that might be a better measure of who was really the "winner" of the games.) As an American, of course I root for the home team, but I also cheer for the Kenyan who won his country's first gold in the Marathon. I saw the arguments starting, so I did post a byte linking to the Olympic Charter just in case anyone was interested in learning more about the Olympics and what they are all about.

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