The Olympics: faster, higher, stronger--- unless three of you are from the same country.
I was curious about people's opinions about various rules at the Olympics limiting the number of participants from any given country. Like a lot of people, I only follow these sports once every four years, and the existence of these rules came as a surprise to me.
The most high-profile case, at least in the United States, is in the women's gymnastics individual all-around competition. As I understand it, the athletes' performances from the team qualifying round are used to select the finalists for the individual competition. The top 24 gymnasts are chosen, with the huge caveat that only two can be from any given country. This time, this rules out American Jordyn Wieber, the reigning world champion, who finished fourth overall (two of her teammates, Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas, finished second and third). Three other athletes--one each from Russia, Japan, and Britain, also would have qualified, but were third-best on their respective teams and will also miss the finals.
In my own uninformed opinion, the rule seems preposterous. I've always thought that the Olympics were for the most part individual competitions. Athletes might come from a particular country, but they compete as individuals--they put in the work, they do all the training, they should get all the credit. If one ideal of the Olympics is to feature the highest level of competition, then it has to feature the best athletes. How can the person who finished fourth best in qualifying not be in the final field of 24? The focus then turns away from individual athletic accomplishment to some tired national rivalries about medal counts and other petty things. A movement that is supposed to be about transcending national boundaries becomes a squabble between them. The bronze medal no longer means third in the world--a stupendous achievement-- and becomes the much murkier "third best, if you excluded a bunch of people who had the bad luck of coming from the same country as some other folks."
As it turns out, this rule comes not from the Olympics, but from FIG, the international gymnastics federation. (Oh, for an international sporting organization that isn't politicized and decrepit.) Similar rules exist for other sports-- in swimming, each country can only put forth two competitors per individual event. After the Chinese swept the table tennis medals in Beijing, the sport decided only two players per country could participate at the Olympics. To me, this kind of thing cheapens the competition. As far as is practical, we want to see the world's best compete. If the world's three best are all Chinese, or Jamaican, or Romanian, then let's have three of the same nation's flags above the podium.
There is an argument to be made--and a good one-- that the Olympics are also about inclusion, not just competition. To me, that's the purpose of the preliminary rounds. Everyone had a chance to participate in the qualifying rounds of the gymnastics competition. The chance to participate, and to compete fairly against the rest of the world, came there. That's where the Olympic spirit of celebrating effort and participation lives. For the rest of the competition, however, we should see the contest as one of athletic merit, without regard to nationality or such provincial concerns.
= new reply since forum marked as read
They were punishing our women, especially on the floor routines, but were letting the Russians and Romanians off easy. 
It's total bullshit.
A lot of things like this are pissing me off this Olympics.
And for those who think that we only care because it's an American getting screwed, the thing with the Korean fencer yesterday pissed me off more than the thing with Jordyn Wieber. That situation was horribly ridiculous and sad, and if I were one of the Korean coaches or fencers I would be absolutely livid and preparing a lawsuit (if suing is even possible). 
