U-S-A chants constantly break out in Trump rallies, but the U-S-A chant started as a way for Americans to root for their sports teams during international competitions, such as the Olympic Games.
Interestingly, the first recorded use of the chant can be found in a surprising source, German filmmaker and Nazi propagandist Leni Reifenstahl’s documentary of the 1936 Berlin Summer Games, “Olympia.” Reifenstahl’s film includes audio of American fans shouting U-S-A during the 1,500- meter foot race and the long jump. Apparently Hitler missed that one.
In 1980 the chant became a national fixture when the U.S. ice hockey team, a collection mainly composed of college players, beat the heavily favored and four-time defending gold medalist professionals from the Soviet Union in the Lake Placid Winter Games, aptly dubbed the “Miracle on Ice.”
It was the first time I ever heard the U-S-A chant, but it wasn’t surprising given the rabid athletic competition between the two nations during the Cold War. What was surprising was the next morning when I went to work on the floor of the American Stock Exchange and the chant rocked the roof of the cavernous building before the opening bell.
Other famous examples of the U-S-A chant were when President George W. Bush visited the ruins of the World Trade Center site in the week following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and when crowds gathered outside the White House and at Ground Zero and Times Square when President Barack Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011. Americans were united then.
There were many U-S-A chants at the Paris Olympics. And this time there were no politics involved, considering Russian athletes were banned from attending under their home country’s banner – OK, the Chinese were there, but even though China is widely considered our country’s greatest competitor, the relationship still hasn’t reached a Cold War level of tension. It’s more a Chilly War than a Cold War.
The American team certainly did well these past few weeks, coming away with 126 medals, far more than our closest competitor, the aforementioned China, with 91. However the Chinese tied us for the lead in gold, at 40. It figures considering China has a pool of about a billion potential star athletes while the U.S. has about 350 million. They’ll obviously be our prime competition in the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
Forget the medal count for a while. The Paris Games were a stunning example of our country’s diversity. Our team was made up of Caucasians, Blacks, Asian Americans, Hispanics, newly naturalized citizens, second-generation Americans, men and women. The Chinese team was made up of Chinese.
Women were especially important for Team USA. Entering the final day of competition on Sunday, China had earned two more gold medals than the U.S. We came from behind, with victories in the two final events, bicycling and women’s basketball.
Jennifer Valente won her second gold of the Paris Games, winning a contest called the women’s omnium on Sunday. Then the U.S. women’s basketball team squeaked out a 67-66 win over France in the final event. Whew.
Let’s hear it for the women. They won 26 golds to the men’s 13. The other was won by a mixed team in the 4×100-meter swimming medley relay, with two men and two women participating. I heard the total number of medals won by the American women alone would have placed them fifth on the medal chart.
Diversity is a winner.
I couldn’t determine the racial breakdown of the gold medal winners – even AI was of no help. But the U.S. gymnastics teams were a microcosm of the American team as a whole.
The men’s team that won the bronze in team gymnastics was made up of Brody Malone, a Caucasian born in Johnson City, Tenn.; Fred Richard, whose father is Haitian and mother Dominican; Asher Hong, born of Chinese immigrants; Paul Juda, whose parents were both Polish immigrants; and Stephen Nedoroscik, whose great-grandparents emigrated from Slovakia and who became known as the “pommel horse guy,” a self-described nerd. Whoa, a nerd athlete – we certainly did have a diverse team.
The women’s team of course starred Simone Biles, a Black woman who was born in Columbus, Ohio. Just about everybody knows of her amazing career in gymnastics. How many people know of the adversity she faced in her life?
Her birth mother was unable to care for Simone and her three siblings, so all four were in and out of foster care. Her maternal grandfather and his second wife, Nellie Cayetano, eventually adopted her and a younger sister. Cayetano came from the Central American country of Belize. Simone holds Belizean citizenship through her adoptive mother and considers Belize to be her second home.
Biles was joined on the team by Sunisa Lee, the first Hmong-American Olympic athlete. The Hmong people are an indigenous group in East and Southeast Asia. Her mother had immigrated to the U.S. from Laos. Then there’s Jordan Chiles, who has a Black father and a Latina mother. Jade Carey was born and raised in Phoenix and her parents owned a gym, giving her a step up in getting involved with gymnastics. But she, too, didn’t have an easy time of it as a child, considering her parents were divorced when she was quite young.
Diversity rules.
Hey, a skeet shooter, an old guy in Olympics-level sports at 35, helped the U.S. make the 40 mark in gold. It was the fourth time Vincent Hancock won gold in that sport.
Diversity can be super diverse, can’t it?
All Americans should have been root, root, rooting for the U.S. team. But many weren’t.
Agreed, some people aren’t interested in the Olympics at all, because most of the sports the spectacle features are seen only once on TV every four years. So they missed the absolutely sensational performances. Gymnastics once again must be brought up because the athletes, both men and women, performed incredible, risking-a-broken-neck-at-any-moment moves. Then there was the closeness of so many of the track races – for example, Noah Lyles of the U.S. beating out Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson by five-thousandths of a second to win the 100m gold. Five-thousandths of a second!
Those who didn’t watch missed out on thrilling performance after thrilling performance, and not just by Americans. The French found a hero in Leon Marchand, who won four golds in swimming in front of a excited home crowd. And how about Julien Alfred winning the women’s 100m? She represented the tiny Caribbean nation of St. Lucia, with a population of under 200,000, giving that country its first Olympic medal ever. Meanwhile, Thea LaFond won gold in the triple jump, giving another tiny Caribbean nation, Dominica, population less than 80,000, its first Olympic medal as well. Those two women will never have to buy their own drink again in their own countries. These were an incredible Olympic Games.
Unfortunately, there was another reason some Americans didn’t root for their home team during the 2024 Paris Olympics – that controversial scene during the opening ceremonies where a nearly naked actor was surrounded by dancers and drag queens. It was interpreted by many as blasphemy of Christianity in the form of a spoof on da Vinci’s Last Supper, something its French director, Thomas Jolly, denied.
“There is Dionysus, who is at this table,” Jolly said. “He is there because he is the god of celebration in Greek mythology, the god of wine, who is one of the jewels of France. And the father of Sequana, the goddess who is related to the river, the Seine. The idea was to have a Pagan festival linked to the gods of Olympus. You will never find in me a desire to mock and denigrate anyone.”
Still, many American conservatives urged people not to watch the Games, and I heard several people say that’s why they weren’t partaking. My take? Hey, it was a Frenchman who staged the scene. What does that have to do with withholding support for American athletes?
If you can’t stand drag queens, you probably aren’t fond of gays and lesbians, either. Well, rest assured some of the American athletes weren’t heterosexual. For example, basketball star Brittney Griner came out as a lesbian way back in 2013.
When she was on the podium receiving her gold medal along with the rest of the American women’s team, she cried when the national anthem was played.
“You know, I was on the podium, the flag was going up, and as soon as the anthem started like that, tears were coming down my face,” Griner said later. “It means so much to me. My family didn’t think I would be here, like I’ve said before, and then to be here, winning gold for my country, representing Team USA when my country fought for me so hard (to get her released from a Russian prison after 10 months), to even be standing here, yeah, this gold medal is going to hold a special place amongst the other two.”
Griner loves America. Americans, all Americans, should love her and millions of other Americans who are “different” as well. Enough of the culture wars; enough of racial tension, of the anti-immigrant anger that is sweeping the country. When you chant U-S-A, you should be chanting for all Americans. Some people missed a great chance to be united once again.
Remember, diversity is worth its weight in gold.
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Publish date : 2024-08-13 20:38:00
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