Only one sporting event can bring together more than 200 countries and more than 11,000 of the world’s most gifted athletes in one arena: the Olympics. When searching for a definition for the term “great,” I was struck by the repeated references to large size. It is hard to argue against the largeness of the passion of soccer fans. In fact, the word “fan,” derived from the word “fanatic,” is intimately familiar when referring to soccer “fans,” while you rarely hear of fans of the Olympics.
Large passion was never cited in the definitions of greatness I saw. On the other hand, being of “very large size” was the primary definition in The American Heritage Dictionary, and my personal favorite, “Of outstanding significance or importance,” was the sixth.
With this in mind, in no way can the World Cup be considered greater than the Olympics. The 202 countries represented in the Olympic Games are more than six times as many as the 32 countries represented in the World Cup.
The 11,099 athletes that participated in the games are greater than 15 times as many as the 736 that participated in the World Cup, and the 28 sporting events, including soccer, absolutely eclipses the monotonous singularity of the World Cup’s single event.
Historically, the Olympic Games as we know them, ignoring the original held in 776 B.C., started in 1896, while the World Cup has only been in existence since 1930.
To those who believe the World Cup to be the greater event, I pose to you this challenge: How many of you can tell me what the actual World Cup, the trophy itself, looks like? If you pictured an actual cup, perhaps a golden version of the Stanley Cup (another underappreciated trophy), you were way off. Imagine something more like a gilded soccer ball held up by golden drapes that fall squarely onto a small, round base. It in no way possesses the design of a cup.
Now, is there a single person out there who doesn’t know what a gold medal looks like? Didn’t think so.
The Olympics are so widely known and ingrained into our psyches as the pinnacle of sporting success that the awards given out are uniquely recognizable. The gold medal is the most recognizable award of any sort with the possible exception of the blue ribbon. This recognition is indicative of the overwhelming influence The Olympics exerts on our society.
Don’t tell me either that the term “The Olympics” stretches the definition of “Sporting Event,” anymore than “The World Cup” does. Anyone who paid attention to the past few summer Olympics knows how eagerly the media reports the “medal count.” The term references the total number of medals any given country wins, i.e. who the winner is.
In fact, at the 2004 Olympics held in Athens, the greatest drama was not focused on any individual achievement, except perhaps for Michael Phelps’ quest to break the record for all-time individual medals, but on the threat posed by the Chinese to the United States’ recent domination of the games. Not even on total medal count, mind you, in which the United States eventually defeated Russia 103-92, but in terms of gold medals alone, which was significantly closer at 35-32. We won both