FROM Los Angeles to Athens, the chant of the United States' all-conquering Olympics team once lingered long after the flame was extinguished. "We're No. 1! We're No. 1! We're No. 1!
Now, from an event where a super-sized medal count has usually helped reassure Americans about their global superiority, comes a far less robust refrain: "We're No. 2! We're No. 2! We're No. 2! (Unless the Russians beat us as well)."
The unusually pessimistic tone of the American team leaders as they considered the likelihood the US would not top the medal count for the first time since 1992 (when they were narrowly pipped by the remnants of the old Soviet block in Barcelona) is partly due to the exhaustive measures taken by the Chinese to ensure their massive Olympic investment is as evident on the medals table as it is in Beijing's impressive new infrastructure.
If the US remains a force in the big-ticket events such as athletics, swimming and basketball, then the Chinese have them covered in sports more eagerly anticipated by the locals such as table tennis, badminton, weightlifting, shooting, archery, taekwondo, diving and gymnastics.
"We're not used to being the outsider in an Olympic Games," said US Olympic Committee president Peter Ueberroth. "But we might have to get used to that … they (the Chinese) have a formidable system we will have to contend with for a long time."
However the sense of abashment, even pessimism, among US team officials is not merely due to the emergence of a powerful challenger. During America's sometimes bitter athletic rivalry with its Cold War enemies, the US chest-beating was at its loudest. Now, more complex sporting, political and economic issues are undermining American confidence.
It does not help that, in the wake of the Balco scandal that exposed and shamed, among others, triple gold medal-winning sprinter Marion Jones, the US can no longer look down on its sporting rivals from the moral high-ground. Where fingers were pointed during the Cold War at bearded Bulgarian shot-putters (in the women's event), now USOC chief executive Jim Scheer sheepishly says his team is "hopefully drug free".
Asked why the USOC did not take the "moral option" and exclude an athlete who had tested positive, even though he was eligible to compete under IOC rules, Scheer admits the moral option was no longer available to his team. "Well, we haven't been perfect on these things," said Scheer. "Far from it."
Also taking the strut from the American stride in Beijing is the strangely ambiguous approach to addressing China's human rights abuses. On Wednesday, American athletes took a stand by nominating Sudanese refugee Lopez Lomong, a 23-year-old 1500 metres runner, to carry their flag at the opening ceremony, a potent message given China's support of the Sudanese Government's abuses in Darfur.
Despite Uebberoth's rhetoric about how "if there is any problem in this country (China), it will better off for hosting the Olympics", America's tepid official approach is that of a country where the moral compass is still spinning in the wake of the Iraq invasion and admissions of torture in Guantanamo Bay. Here, too, the moral high-ground has been abandoned.
There is some irony in the fact the Chinese are likely to topple the Americans here. It was frenzied diplomatic efforts by the US to have the China compete in its first Olympics under communist rule in Los Angeles in 1984 — largely to ameliorate the affects of the Soviet boycott — that brought the then-isolated Chinese blinking into the global sporting spotlight.
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