In the US we take it for granted that we will have Olympic winners. But for smaller countries, just being able to compete in the Olympics is an honor. For example, in 1996 one athlete from Ecuador, Jefferson Perez, won the first Gold medal for his country (in speed walking, of all sports). The entire country erupted in celebrations for many weeks to follow.
Macedonia sent three athletes to this years Olympics: Darko Damjanovski in Men's cross country, Ivana Ivcevska (Women's Alpine Skiing) and Gjorgi Markovski in Men's Alpine Skiing.
There were no hopes for medals, (maybe some day)...
By comparison, our neighbors Albania had one athlete, Bulgaria had 22 (with a Silver Medal in Women's 500 Meter), Bosnia and Herzegovina had 7, Serbia and Montenegro had 6, Slovenia had 43, Romania had 33.
The US had 216 athletes.
2 comments:
The olympics were fun to watch. My favorite is the figure skating in which The USA took home the sliver thank's to Sasha Cohen. Cool Huh?
Yeah, I like to watch the ice skating and the snowboarding! :)
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