Lessons from the United States of Athletics
The United States has won the highest number of medals at the Rio Olympic Games. The consistent performance of the US at the Olympics through the years should give other countries reason to reflect what they should do to improve their performance at the next games.
When one looks at how permeating the sports culture is in the US, its success in the Olympics seems natural. I have spent most of my career working in US universities, where one of my first culture shocks was to find that some American students select schools based on sports, while most, if not all, Chinese students' choices are based on academic ranking.
The violent behavior of some athletes - for example, when four US swimmers got drunk and vandalized a gas station in Rio and cooked up a story to save themselves - doesn't take away the importance of sports in American people's lives.
