Olympics and the Egalitarian Bunk

Politicians and their mainstream sycophants frequently lectures, directly and indirectly (through media), the public about the supposed necessity of having a society based on ‘equality’ or egalitarianism.

Unfortunately they hardly practice what they preach.

Professor Tibor Machan exposes the egalitarian balderdash.

The Olympic Games come in very handy for those of us who find egalitarianism morally and politically intolerable. The Games show how little appeal there is to forcing everyone into the same mold, how much violence and coercion it would--and where attempted does--take to even toy with bringing about an egalitarian society.

The only place where equality has a decisive role in human social affairs is when it comes to protecting everyone’s basic rights. This is the way the Declaration of Independence finds room for equality. Once everyone’s basic rights are secure, from that point on no room exists for equalization in a just human community.

Sure, there can be special areas where equality can be of value, for example in the application of standards and rules, as shown in athletics. But even there equality will apply in highly diverse ways--one way in the classroom, another in the legal system, and yet another at a beauty contest. General equality belongs only in the protection of individual rights, period.

Elsewhere it is just as it’s illustrated by the Olympic Games, with variety and differences breaking out all over. As long as these are peacefully obtained, as long as ranking comes about without corruption, there is nothing objectionable about inequalities in human affairs. Furthermore, attempting to make things equal achieves the exact opposite since those doing the attempting will enjoy the worst kind of inequality, namely, power over their fellows as they try to manipulate everyone to be equal.

Just as elsewhere in most of nature, in human affairs, too, inequality is the norm. But since human beings are free to establish various rules in their societies, they have the option, which they ought to exercise, to preclude all coercion from human interactions. Beyond that, it is futile to try to exclude inequalities in human affairs.

It is not inequality that needs to be abolished but coercive force. With that achieved, at least substantially, let diversity and difference be the norm. As that old saying goes, “Vive la difference.” Any serious examination of the prospects of an egalitarians polity should reveal just how insidious the idea is. Just consider requiring that all outcomes of the Olympic Games be equal!

The simple point is that Olympics is all about the inequality of human affairs. The fact that governments promote Olympics has been an implicit recognition of such diversity.

Yet in reality, the politics of egalitarianism represents nothing more than convenient excuses to implement social policies of redistribution or interventionism and the rule of philosopher kings.

Olympic Medals and Economic Health

The state of a nation’s economy seem to have a tight correlationship with the score of Olympic medals acquired.

As New York University’s William Easterly points out: (charts from Mr. Easterly too)

“what determines Olympic medals?” The answer is income per capita and population, or in other words total GDP.

But such correlationship may not be perfect.

Mr. Easterly notes of the outliers and of the lessons:

The big underachievers are (in order of underachievement) India, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia.

The big overachievers are Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, Iran, , and Jamaica.

The lessons seem to be:

(1) World Bank national development strategies in key emerging markets have failed miserably in the Olympics sector.

(2) a history of Communism may not have been so awesome for development and liberty, but it’s still amazing for Olympic medals.

(3) Islamist ideology is a mixed medal producer (Saudi Arabia no, Iran yes).

(4) if nothing else works, just run really fast.

Interesting.

The IRS Awaits US Olympic Winners

Poor US Olympic athletes.

Triumph from years of hard work will only mean that much of their earnings (seized) taxed away by the IRS.

From America’s Tax Reform, (bold original)

While 529 hardworking athletes proudly represent the United States in the 2012 Olympics, any medals and money they earn wearing red, white and blue will be taxed by the IRS. According to research done by the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation, U.S. Olympic athletes are liable to pay income tax on medals earned and prizes received at the London games.

American medalists face a top income tax rate of 35 percent. Under U.S. tax law, they must add the value of their Olympic medals and prizes to their taxable income. It is therefore easy to calculate the tax bite on Olympic glory.

At today’s commodity prices, the value of a gold medal is about $675. A silver medal is worth about $385 while a bronze medal is worth under $5.

There are also prizes that accompany each medal: $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze.

So how much will U.S. Olympic medal winners have to pay in taxes to the IRS?

	Medal Tax	Prize Tax	Total Tax Burden
Gold	$236	$8,750	$8,986
Silver	$135	$5,250	$5,385
Bronze	$2	$3,500	$3,502

American gold medal winners will pay the IRS up to $8,986. Silver medal winners will pay up to $5,385. Bronze medal winners will pay up to $3,502.

Of course add to the miseries of the world Olympians are the vastly reduced value of their medallions which I showed earlier.

Below is from the Economist,

Calculations by The Economist find that this is much more than the "podium value" of any previous gold medal (based on estimates of the composition of medals and bullion prices at the time, adjusted for inflation). This is partly because gold and silver prices are now historically high and partly because this year's medal is so much heavier, even though the extra weight is silver rather than gold. For the first time, the silver in this year's "gold" medal is actually worth more than its gold content. Moreover, if the metal content of earlier medals is valued at today's bullion prices, the London gold is worth only just over half of those handed out in 1912.

Yet the above signifies as evidences that governments barely reward the efforts and merits by their citizenry.

Quote of the Day: Olympics: A Giant Exercise in Sports Socialism

The Olympics are a giant exercise in sports socialism—or crony capitalism, if you prefer—where the profits are privatized and the costs socialized. The games never pay for themselves because they are designed not to. That’s because the International Olympic Committee (an opaque “nongovernmental” bureaucracy made up of fat cats from various countries) pockets most of the revenue from sponsorships and media rights (allegedly to promote global sports), requiring the host country to pay the bulk of the costs. Among the very few times the games haven’t left a city swimming in red ink was after the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, when voters, having learned from Montreal’s experience, barred the use of public funds, forcing the IOC to use existing facilities and pick up most of the tab for new ones.

This is from Shikha Dalmia at Reason. (Hat tip Professor Mark Perry)

Politicized activities are frequently characterized by guilt, envy, anger, finger pointing, victimization, divisiveness and covetism.

The astonishing record breaking feat by China’s 16 year old lady swimmer, Ye Shiwen, who even bested the 50 meter free style record of male American swimmer Ryan Lochte in the men’s race triggered swirl of rumors about “doping” which she vehemently denies.

Even without proof, such controversies reveal of the intolerance of the establishment of the unorthodox, where they would instead resort to mudslinging or rumor mongering.

As Professor Kling recently wrote

Politics channels the base emotion of hatred. A lot of political actions derive from hatred of the other.

Such antagonistic controversies only highlights the socialism of sports via the Olympics.

P.S. I was bogged down by the day long power outage (localized earth hour) yesterday so I wasn’t able to do much posting.

Even in the Olympics, Central Planning Fails

Why do Olympic games suffer from financial losses? Because Olympic planners think that they have it all worked out.

From the Telegraph,

-Large areas of empty seats seen in stadia for the second day running

-London 2012 chairman Lord Coe reveals students and teachers are also being called in at the last minute

-Every tout arrested had tickets sent to foreign VIPS

-Organisers Locog have begun an investigation into the ticketing fiasco

To the chagrin of political authorities, to cover on the scores of empty seats, students and soldiers had to be bussed in.

This is a familiar scene in the Philippines which we call the “hakot crowd”

Again from the same Telegraph article,

Last night, Team GB cyclist Geraint Thomas said: ‘It’s quite sad, seeing all the empty seats.’

Lord Coe revealed yesterday how troops, students and teachers were being drafted in to help end the embarrassing spectacle of empty seats at Olympic venues.

By discriminating against the markets, authorities had these coming to them after all

Professor Christopher Westley at the Mises Blog rightly points out,

The Olympics are essentially mercantile events in which planning takes place outside of market forces so as to achieve outcomes preferred not by consumers but by states. (Peter Hitchens argues here that this trend started with the 1936 Olympics in Berlin when Hitler and Goebbels transformed them into “grandiose and torch-lit” spectacles.) Regardless, the events in London are demonstrating once again what an LSE economist in the 1930s said about economics–that its “curious task” was “to demonstrate to men how little they know about what they imagine they can design.” Why did Sebastian Coe and his team think they could effect a better outcome than what would result from the price system? These are practical men, but even Keynes might admit that they are probably slaves of some defunct and incorrect economist.

So at the end of the day, financial losses extrapolates to the debasement of medallions for winners or may even lead to higher taxes for the unfortunate London residents whom has hosted such grand boondoggle.

Even Olympic Medals have been “Debased”

While I am a fan of sports, I am not a fan of the Olympics.

Olympics, for me, represents the politicization of sports premised on feel good nationalism, which are largely financed by massive expenditures of taxpayer money.

The economics of Olympics suggests that the popular games, except for some instances (e.g. LA Olympics), have incurred losses for the hosts. At worst, financial losses extrapolated to higher taxes.

Professor David Henderson notes of the Canadian experience,

That view is understandable because losing money has been the norm. When the Olympics were held in Montreal in 1976, for example, the loss amounted to $2 billion, which was $700 per Montreal resident. And remember that that was in 1976 dollars. That loss resulted in a special tax on tobacco because, you know, smokers are such fans of the Olympics.

And proof of the politicization of sports via the Olympics can be further seen through the medallions for the winners—where the content of the London 2012 medals has been materially debased or devalued.

Image from BBC.

The Zero Hedge points out (bold original)

As every Olympic athlete knows, size matters. The London 2012 medals are the largest ever in terms of both weight and diameter - almost double the medals from Beijing. However, just as equally well-known is that quality beats quantity and that is where the current global austerity, coin-clipping, devaluation-fest begins. The 2012 gold is 92.5 percent silver, 6.16 copper and... 1.34 percent gold, with IOC rules specifying that it must contain 550 grams of high-quality silver and a whopping 6 grams of gold. The resulting medallion is worth about $500. For the silver medal, the gold is replaced with more copper, for a $260 bill of materials. The bronze medal is 97 percent copper, 2.5 percent zinc and 0.5 percent tin. Valued at about $3, you might be able to trade one for a bag of chips in Olympic park if you skip the fish.

The devaluation of the Olympic medals just exhibits the natural or deep-seated impulse of governments to inflate, as well as, to break their own established rules or standards—sports or no sports.

Defunct Olympic Games

From the Economist ``THE Beijing Olympics may be over, but the long run-up to the London Olympics has begun. In 2012 baseball and softball will be dropped as Olympic events. Played by only a handful of countries, they join a long list of discontinued Olympic events. The 100m freestyle swim for sailors survived just one Olympics after being limited to sailors from the host country. If some other events are dropped—farewell to rhythmic gymnastics or synchronised swimming?—there might be space to bring back more unusual sports. Perhaps it is time again for live pigeon-shooting (in Trafalgar Square) or an old favourite, the tug-of-war.”

36 Facts from the 2008 Beijing Olympics

Chris Chase via Yahoo sports gives us 36 interesting facts from the 2008 Beijing Games…

To quote Mr. Chase’s entire article…

In honor of the 36 gold medals won by the United States at the 2008 Summer Olympics, Fourth-Place Medal presents 36 interesting facts about the overall medal count:

1) China won the most gold medals at the Beijing Games with 51. They become the first country to crack the 50-gold mark since the Soviet Union in 1988. The most golds ever won in a single Olympics is 83 (United States, 1984).

2) It's the first time since 1936 that a country other than the United States or the Soviet Union has led the medal count.

***
As a side note: if we include in the tally the medal count of the former Soviet Union countries as representative of the old USSR-they would have still dominated the top spot for overall medal counts (but not for gold)…

Courtesy of wisegeek.com

***
Now Back to the facts…

3) China won more golds in Beijing (51) than they did total medals in Atlanta (50).

4) 'Project 119' was a Chinese initiative designed toward winning golds in the medal-rich sports of swimming, track, rowing, kayaking and sailing. Reports are already crediting Project 119 with China's dominance in the gold medal count, but Chinese athletes won just four golds in those sports. Their total was instead augmented by even better performances in Chinese-dominated events like diving, gymnastics and table tennis.

5) The United States won the same amount of golds (36) that they did in Athens, continuing a remarkable consistency that the nation has exhibited over the past half-century. American Olympic gold totals since 1952: 40, 32, 34, 36, 45, 33, 34, 83, 36, 37, 44, 38, 36 and 36. (The outlier of 83 was from the boycotted 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.)

6) The overall medal count was won by the United States for the fourth consecutive Olympics. The U.S. earned 110 medals, compared to China's 100.

7) Per capita, China won one gold medal for every 25 million people in the country. The United States' per capita rate was one gold for every 8.5 million. The tiny island nation of Jamaica, which won a staggering six golds in Beijing, had a per capita rate of one gold for every 450,000 residents. Had China won at that rate, the country would have earned 2,889 golds.

8) Greece won 16 medals as the host country in 2004. Four years later, the founders of the Olympics managed just four -- their lowest total since 1992.

9) African countries won a total of 40 medals, the highest total in history for the continent.
10) Six countries won their first ever Olympic medals: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Mauritius, Sudan, Tajikistan and Togo.

11) Great Britain won 47 medals, the most in their history and a 17-medal increase from Athens. Expect an even higher total in 2012, when the Games will be held in London for the first time in 68 years. The last time Great Britain competed in a Summer Olympics on its home turf, they earned a disappointing three golds.

12) India has 17% of the world's population. They won 0.31% of Olympic medals.

13) China: 19.8% of population, 10.4% of medals.

14) United States: 4.6% of population, 11.5% medals.

15) Jamaica: 0.041% of population, 1.15% medals.

16) Iceland was the least populous country to win an Olympic medal.

17) Pakistan was the most populous country not to win an Olympic medal (164 million residents, sixth-largest nation in the world).

18) Michael Phelps would have finished tied for 9th in the gold medal count, ahead of countries including France, Netherlands, Spain, Canada, Argentina, Switzerland, Brazil and Mexico.

19) The rest of the world won seven golds in men's swimming events. Phelps, of course, won eight.

20) The United States won the most golds (7) and most total medals in the track competition (23), despite having what was widely considered a disappointing meet

21) More proof that boxing is dead in the United States: the country earned just one medal (a bronze) in the 12 boxing events. Even after three straight disappointing boxing performances at the Summer Games, the U.S. has still won the most Olympic boxing medals (109) in history.

22) China won 8 out of 12 possible medals in table tennis and 7 of 8 possible golds in diving.

23) Great Britain won 7 of 10 golds in track cycling and won 12 medals overall. The rest of the world earned 18 medals in the sport.

24) National gold-medal sweeps: Basketball (USA), Beach Volleyball (USA), Rhythmic Gymnastics (RUS), Synchronized Swimming (RUS), Table Tennis (CHN) and Trampoline (CHN).

25) Sweden had the best medal tally (4 silver, 1 bronze) without winning a gold.

26) Armenia won 6 bronze medals, but no gold or silver ones.

27) Speaking of former Soviet states, members of the former Soviet Union won a total of 173 medals in Beijing.

28) In 1992, Cuba finished 5th in the gold medal count. In 2008, the nation finished 28th.

29) From 1980 to 2008, Jamaica won three Olympic golds. In a span of six days in Beijing, Usain Bolt won three.

30) Sweden was a fixture in the top-three of the overall medal count for the early part of the 20th century. In Beijing, the Scandinavian country finished 38th and was shut-out in golds for just the second time in history.

31) Panama and Mongolia won the first gold medals in their respective histories.

32) China won 27 gold medals in judged sports.

33) The United States won 4 gold medals in judged sports.

34) China's "real" medal tally was 24/17/14/55.

35) The "real" medal tally for the United States: 32/31/27/80.

36) In all, 958 medals were handed out to athletes from 87 countries, the most medals and medal receipients in Olympic history.

Olympic Medal Count Based on Select Economic Measures

Interesting site from Youcalc.

It shows of the Olympic medal standings seen from the perspective of economics based on either:

1. per Trillion $ GDP
2. Per million inhabitants
3. Per country

Click on the link for updates

Olympics: Trend of Breaking Records Accelerates! What drives them?

From the Economist,

``TUMBLING world records are part of the Olympic experience, but just how much have swimmers or runners improved over the past 100 years? In Beijing, new records have been set in the most glamorous events in athletics and swimming—the men's 100m sprint and freestyle. Jamaica's Usain Bolt cruised to victory, taking his own 100m sprint world record down by three-hundredths of a second to 9.69 seconds. In the century or so since official records began, the quickest time has fallen by just under a second—a 9% improvement. But in the pool, Australia's Eamon Sullivan covered 100m in the heats (although he lost in the final) in a world-fastest time of 47.05 seconds, 19 seconds (and 28%) quicker than the record-holder of 1905."

Courtesy of the Economist

With these trends here are some questions we’d like to know…

-Has demographics or world population growth been a significant contributor to these developments?

Courtesy of Franklin Institute Science Museum

Or more people equals better odds for outperformance?

-or has rapid and sweeping advances in technology or “sports science” (sports gears, equipments, arenas-e.g. pool design, scientific training etc…) been the major driver?

Example, this from the New York Times (underscore mine), ``As swimming becomes more popular, it attracts better athletes, who often stay in the sport for more than one Olympics and have access to increasingly sophisticated sports science. Swimmers who once concentrated mostly on endurance now spend up to 50 percent of their training on refining the technical aspects of kicking, pulling, breathing and body position, said Genadijus Sokolovas, director of sports science for USA Swimming….

``American swimmers here are accompanied by four sports-science experts. Each race is videotaped. Immediately after a race, each swimmer has an ear pricked to test for lactic-acid levels. After a warm-down swim, video analysis is made immediately available to monitor stroke counts, distance per stroke, split times, and the biomechanics of takeoffs and turns.

Another example (HT: Forbes’ Josh Wolfe) Phil Mickelson’s Congressional testimony on the importance of Math and Science (emphasis mine)``I use math and science every day, and it's not just adding yardages to the pin. I actually practice based on statistics. I use course management based on numbers. For instance, I know that my margin of error is plus or minus 5 or 6 percent. So if I have a 200 yard shot, 6 percent of that is going to be 32 yards off line - that's going to be my margin of error. And there's even more science involved in equipment I use. Launch angles, spin rate, loft, deflection, initial velocity, the transfer of energy. I continually work with companies like Callaway and some of the most technical design processes to optimize the performance of my clubs.”

“I use statistics to maximize my practice. I do a drill with 3-foot putts. And I can make 100% of them. But at 4 feet, it's 88%, at 5 feet 78%, and at 6 feet, it's only 65%. So while I may not be wasting my time trying to add 20 yards to my drives, what I really need to do is hit my chip shots within 3 feet of the hole. That's the best way to lower my score."

-or has the global political economic dimensions of Olympics (globalization’s role-e.g. training abroad or migration trends; investment or financing of participants a function of markets or of government?; type of government and or social acceptability etc..) played a major role?

Wall Street Journal: Professor Johnson’s Medal Standing Prediction; Philippine Olympic Delegates of ONLY 15 Aspirants Reduces Odds For Gold!

The Wall Street Journal recently published the predictions of economist Daniel Johnson, a professor at Colorado College, on the possible totem pole rankings of medals among the participating countries in the Olympics. Professor Johnson was said to have accurately the outcomes during the past Olympic games (summer and winter) since 2000.

As for the basis of Professor Johnson’s model?

From WSJ, ``five basic pieces of data for each participating nation: GDP per capita, total population, political structure (democratic, authoritarian, military or communist), climate (the number of frost days) and home-nation bias.”

In short, economics, politics and environment were mainly used as gauges to predict outcome.

His prediction for the Beijing games?

Courtesy of Wall Street Journal

What significance from this exercise?

According to Professor Johnson as quoted by WSJ, ``what matters most isn’t comparing the take-home medal count of one nation compared to another but instead measuring it against the nation’s own expected performance, based on his metrics. “This is more of a benchmarking analysis than anything else,” he said, to gauge which nations are over- or under-performing their expected totals. Plus, the overall tally is obviously influenced by the size of each nation and how many athletes they train and send to the games. “One reason Botswana doesn’t win a lot of medals is they don’t send a lot of participants each year,” he said.” (highlight mine)

This blog has predicted that socioeconomic conditions seem ripe for the harvest of the ever elusive first Olympic dream gold medal especially in the realm of boxing as discussed in The Socionomics of the First Philippine Olympic Gold Medal-Thank You Manny Pacquiao.

Unfortunately, we learned that with only ONE boxing representative, Harry Tañamor, the odds for attaining such monumental goal vastly dims-(just learned that the others had lost in the prequalifying rounds prior to the Olympics).

Why?

Aside from economics and the sports itself, the quest for the Olympic gold is also about statistical probabilities as qualified by Professor Johnson.

In short, to INCREASE the odds of realizing such dream we need MORE qualified delegates to represent us. The more the entries, the bigger the chances.

Anyway, good luck to our athletes. We will need alot of them.

Gender Barrier Coming Down In The Olympics: A Reflection of World Socioeconomic Progress?

Evolving important social and economic global trends can be seen in the Olympics-female participation in the games have been getting broader.

From the Economist,

``AT THE beginning of the modern Olympic era in 1896, sport was a male preserve. In the first games there were no women among the 241 competitors. Women got their first shot at summer Olympic glory four years later, when tennis, golf and croquet were deemed suitable pursuits. But as it became more acceptable for women to compete in strength- and speed-based sports, the proportion of female athletes at the Olympics has risen. This year's games in Beijing has more female competitors than ever before, making up 45% of the 10,700 expected participants."

Courtesy of the Economist

Seen from the angle of Olympic delegations, participating nations sending all male teams have likewise been on a decline trend…

Courtesy of gulfinstitute.org

This has been especially evident in some Muslim countries which in the past has had strict clothing and cultural proscriptions.

The implication, according to the Gulf Institute (highlight ours),

``Removing the obstacles for women’s participation in athletic competition and sports in general creates a more inclusive and progressive society that ensures equal rights for all its citizens. It comes as no surprise that countries that do not allow women to compete internationally, whether in such events as the Olympics, FIFA, or the Asian Games, are likely to practice other violations of women’s rights and restrict women’s participation in public life in other ways. Nawal El-Moutawakel, the Moroccan Olympic champion in 400 m race, has put it best in an interview with the Swiss Academy for Development,

“Women’s participation in sport is a reflection of the position of women in society in general. The entrance of women into these sporting spaces often coincides with women's entrance and active participation in civil society and politics.” Therefore, the international community and civil society organizations must join their efforts to bring about a more open and fair social environment by ensuring that women everywhere have access to developing and expressing their athletic potential.”

In short, the lowering of gender barrier possibly reflects the potentials of higher productivity and importantly prospective signs of a more diffusive socio-economic progress.

Technology Changing The Way Games Are Played (Swimming)

Technology seems to have altered the competitive dimensions in the sport of swimming. Skills will now have to be complimented by hydrodynamic designed swimwear (fabrics with least drag) in order to gain an edge…(yes even in sports, gains can be set at the margins).

Courtesy of menstyle.com

This from the Economist,

``But technology matters even more in the swimming pool. The body suits worn by swimmers today reduce drag through the water—especially after a start and following a turn—by as much as 10% compared with suits worn at the last Olympics.

“The most popular body suit this year—the $550 Speedo LZR Racer—is credited with some 46 world records since it was introduced just six months ago. Comparable bodysuits have since been rushed out by Arena, Adidas and Mizuno in time for the Beijing games.

“Speedo gets its edge from a space-age “pulse” fabric and the way it’s welded together rather than sewn to create a smooth, streamlined shape in the water. Engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Centre in Virginia tested more than 60 different fabrics in a wind-tunnel for Speedo to find out which offered the lowest skin resistance…

“The researchers at Langley found that at the speeds simulated in the wind-tunnel, the smoothest fabrics and weaves had the lowest passive drag (the resistance generated by a swimmer kicking forward with the arms stationary out front after a diving start or turn).”

Speedo LZR Racer in Action Courtesy of the Economist

I guess this means it won’t be just about competitive “Olympic” skills this time. Nonetheless, this should also be seen as an incoming fashion trend.

Simply said, we’d probably see more of this high tech $550* swimwear gear pervade the swimming pools.

*of course, one should expect retail prices to be lower so as to gain a 'critical mass'-often the hallmark of technological innovations

The Socionomics of the First Philippine Olympic Gold Medal-Thank You Manny Pacquiao

``Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”-Milton Friedman (1912 –2006), an American Nobel Laureate economist and public intellectual

The Olympic season is upon us.

What more is there than to speculate on whether the Philippines will attain or harvest its first ever dream gold medal. And I believe that the time is ripe where boxing among other sports will most likely deliver the goods. And mind you, we may be speaking of more than just one medal.

Although I had been an aficionado during the era of Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, I haven’t followed the sport enough to know the chain of events since. Candidly speaking, not even much of the recent string of triumphs by our legendary Manny Pacquiao (until this article) or of the composition of our national team for the August Beijing 2008 Games.

The online Wikipedia encyclopedia says that the Filipinos have had a disappointing record of only 5 medalists throughout the years: 2 silver-Anthony Villanueva, Featherweight in 1964 Tokyo and Mansueto Velasco, Light Flyweight in 1996 Atlanta and 3 bonzes:-José Villanueva - Bantamweight 1932 Los Angeles, Leopoldo Serantes - Light Flyweight 1988 Seoul, Roel Velasco - Light Flyweight 1992 Barcelona.

These despite some 30 world professional boxing champions past and present; the noble list of Philippine boxing greats from boxrec.com -Pedro Adigue Jr., Rene Barrientos, Bobby Berna, Rolando Bohol, Frank Cedeno, Eric Chavez, Florante Condes, Roberto Cruz, Nonito Donaire, Morris East, Flash Elorde, Luisito Espinosa, Joma Gamboa, Ceferino Garcia, Eric Jamili, Tacy Macalos, Manny Melchor, Small Montana, Rolando Navarrete, Donnie Nietes, Manny Pacquiao, Rolando Pascua, Dodie Boy Penalosa, Gerry Penalosa, Erbito Salavarria, Jesus Salud, Malcolm Tunacao, Pancho Villa, Bernabe Villacampo and Ben Villaflor.

Of course one may argue that professional boxing and amateur boxing are worlds apart. This may somehow be true but overall the incentives from the expression of social mood could be an indicator of the sport’s likely bright future.

There are 3 main factors why I think the elusive Philippine Olympic gold medal in boxing will be within reach hopefully this August at the Beijing 2008 Games:

1. Social Acceptance

Prior to Manny Pacquiao’s glory, boxing as a sport has been mostly associated with the lower levels of the social strata. Pacman overhauled this image. Today, the proliferation of boxing gyms even within the rich enclaves (yes I have seen a gym at a hotel in Ortigas) have virtually closed the gap of societal participation in the sport.

This means that with more people-regardless of the income or social class-getting connected or involved, structural support (financing, training and etc.) for the sport is expected to mount.

2. Economics of Boxing and Wider Access to Financing.

Of course boxing is not only a sport, it has become an industry.

Aside from prestige or fame, Pacman’s humongous prize earnings, plus the ancillary fees such as pay per view, advertisement or sponsorships, merchandising, appearance and others (I suspect that these have even grown more than the prized earnings) should be another incentive to draw in more participants (players, trainers, coaches, investors, financers, media coverage etc.).

Of course Pacman signifies a statistical “fat tail”, whose feat will unlikely be replicated soon. The fact that he joins the ranks of Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar de la Hoya, Roberto Duran and Floyd Mayweather Jr. in capturing championships in four weight divisions, the Pacman has become a legend in his own right and importantly one for the WORLD sports history books. What prestige!

The point is that the economics of boxing has shown its potential rewards in both tangible and intangible aspects as powerful incentives enough to attract a larger segment of participants. The Pacman model now becomes a sizeable magnet for the industry’s growth!

In contrast, in relative terms, Billiards, another sport where the Philippines have excelled internationally, has shown similar bandwith (of social acceptance and economics), but whose incentives (not included in the Olympics, lesser degree in terms of price money or fame or world audience relative to boxing) have not been as compelling enough to generate sustainability to the same level (as seen by the diminishing billiard pool outlets). Nevertheless, we are glad to see a continuing stream of supply of world billiard champions.

And this burgeoning economics of boxing has been emblematic with the sprouting of boxing gyms nationally. In short, the industry/sport now has not only garnered the social support but a wider reach or access to capitalization.

When finance greases the wheels of the industry/sport we expect a boom to follow with attendant results.

Importantly this also shows that private initiatives and not of government (in contrast to the conventional thinking) will drive the Philippines’ realization for world boxing supremacy-and our Olympic gold(s).

3. Plentiful Supply of Talents

As we earlier mentioned the Philippines has a cornucopia of boxing talents even during times when the sport was not as socially diffused as it is today. The 20+ champions (prior to Pacman regime) and 5 Olympic medals during those scarcity times are enough credentials to state of the endemic supply of champion quality boxers.

The snowballing economics fueled by social action will improve on the scale and quality of participation aside from increasing the pool of available highly qualified candidates for the championship class.

If I am not mistaken this marks the first time in Philippines sports history where we have four simultaneous incumbent world champions as of this writing, specifically Manny Pacquiao, Nonito Donaire Jr. IBF Flyweight, Gerry Penalosa WBO Bantamweight and Donnie Nietes WBO Minimumweight. This is a testament to the progressing dynamics from a booming boxing industry.

Of course in the games there will be other factors involved such as acclimatization, conditioning, the quality of opponents, judge biases and plain ol’ lady luck…among other variables.

The important thing to remember is that the greater the caliber or quality of our players emanating from the above dynamics, materially increases the odds for the realization of the long sought after gold medal/s. To my intuition, this dream could come into fruition by next month at the Beijing games.

To our Olympians (boxing and non boxing representatives), it's time to Go for Gold!