The Sydney Olympics are now over and the international sport feast will happen again in four year's time. The numerous sporting codes had their best representatives competing for the most prestigious medals in the sporting world. Speed, strength, endurance, skill and team-work were all clearly on display. But the pure competition is more seriously thrown into question by the inequality between competitors from rich and poor countries.
Many nations only enter athletes in codes that require the most minimal of equipment or facilities.
The sprints have not witnessed African prominence. Sailing, rowing, cycling and numerous other disciplines just don't find competitors from the underdeveloped world. Where they do they come from the elites of some of the most unequal societies on earth such South Africa, Brazil, and Chile. The 'swifter, higher, stronger' motto has increasingly come to apply to the very organisation of the Olympics itself. The speed and efficiency with which the individual events and the event as such are planned, launched, broadcast and co-ordinated deserve a medal in itself.