by LUKE ZUNGA
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – THE glamorous Olympics are over. The world’s focus now shifts to the Paralympics, which start on Wednesday at the same venues in Paris, France.
The Paralympics, which will run until September 8, will see athletes compete in five different impairment groups – amputee, cerebral palsy, visual impairment, spinal cord injuries, and others outside these distinct groups.
The world was glued to television sets in July and August as the competitions intensified, and gold medals were fought for, and won or lost, in a highly competitive environment.
In the end, the United States topped with 126 medals, followed by China (91), Britain (65), France (64), Australia (53) and Japan (45), who were the best performers among the 206 countries represented.
The US and China tied on 40 gold medals each, followed by Japan with 20, Australia at 18 and France on 16.
It is fitting to congratulate all those who excelled and won medals, be it gold, silver or bronze, and the nations which produced these competitive athletes.
Swimmer Tatjana Smith grabbed gold in the pool to lead South Africa’s six-medal haul, taking the country to 44th place overall.
Kenya was the best-performing African country at number 17 with 11 medals – four gold, two silver and five bronze.
Botswana, Egypt, Uganda, Morocco, Ethiopia and Tunisia grabbed gold each.
Botswana can be proud of its gold and silver medals, courtesy of Letsile Tebogo’s triumph in 200m final, and the relay team in which he also participated for a silver medal.
Sadly, for Nigeria or Ghana, our big brothers in Africa, gold eluded them. Ghana, the country of the great statesman and founding father, Kwame Nkrumah, with a population of some 35 million and Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation of nearly 230 million, had nothing to show for it.
The Olympics revealed serious nations and those just hanging around. The results of the Olympics reflect a pattern that nations with capital dominated on the production of most competitive athletes.
Those with bigger budgets produced more competitors in every Olympic category. The theme is that nations must be competitive, and competition starts at economics from which will be the capacity to build necessary infrastructure, support and deployment.
China’s 40 gold medals, which matched that of the US, showed that China has risen to be a competitive nation, through economic competitiveness.
Money alone is not enough. There must be grit to win. China’s population of 1.4 billion people is about four times that of the US.
Comparatively, then the US is more competitive than China.
The American nation is built on competition drive and to beat other nations at every turn. As a country, the US is a world powerhouse, with the biggest economy in the world and competing at every corner – in the oceans, the air, factories, education, health, sports, war, and so on.
Many countries misunderstand the US, complaining about its arrogance, riches, dominance, imposition of its will, a big army terrorizing other nations and supplying weapons, for example to Israel and Taiwan.
The only language the Americans understand is competitive behaviour as China has learnt and also demonstrated.
Hopefully other African countries will recognize that they must be competitive economically to appear on the horizon of the US.
Countries waiting for foreign investors from other countries do not understand this logic. This is where most African countries are, and it’s not helping their cause.
Can Africa compete? Yes, it can but the thinking must change. Solutions must be African and original, not American, British or any other foreign nation, not even Chinese.
NOTE: The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author, Luke Zunga, and not those of CAJ News Africa.
– CAJ News