Do communist countries have an edge in olympic competition?

Question

Consider China in this olympics, as well as the old East Germany and Soviet Union in past olympics.

Answer 1

yea i guess you can say that, i mean since the governments for each of those countries dont care if they break any rules, because theyre the government, nobody can tell them what to do.

Answer 2

No.

Only drugged up US athletes like Marion Jones, Antonio Pettigrew and several others have an edge in Olympic competition...

Answer 3

Yes because they have less respect for the individual.  The state is all that matters.  So they think nothing of taking three year old children from their parents and putting them in state-run training centers to work 14 hour days learning their specific skills.  In free societies, we respect the individual and would never impose the will of the state on families -- at least not quite yet.

Answer 4

Yes, they have a HUGE edge since they can break any rule they want and not be held accountable for it due to our desire to kiss their asses and be so d**n politically correct rather than challenge them.

Answer 5

I don't think so. Maybe there just good. I thought China was cheating tho, when they said the girl was only 14 in gymnastics. They should do something. That's my two sense.

Answer 6

Somehow, because they have the tendency to control everything therefore they can tell people to work harder and people cannot say no.

Answer 7

The two big edges in olympic competition are money and population.  It is pretty easy to predict medals just on that basis alone.  There is a Dartmouth professor who has done it for a couple of games:  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...  The rise of china was expected.  Their GDP doubles every 5 years.  They have a Billion + people.

Communist countries can make up for some lack of money by devoting greater resources to sports.

Everybody knew the East German's were doped up in the 70s and 80s.  Likewise everyone knew the Chinese were doped up in the early 90s when they were setting records in swimming.  One of the tell-tale signs is when the women perform at a higher level than the men.  Dope helps women more.

But doping was (is) rampant in professional cycling, football and baseball.  The olympic sports with the most hits have been track, swimming and weightlifting. HGH is suppose to work well and be virtually undetectable (it does make your head bigger).  Roger Clements is alleged to have given some to his wife to keep her toned up.

(My sport, rowing has been pretty clean, but because of both the strength and endurance requirements, it is the type of sport that would benefit.  I'm sure that there are plenty out there who are dirty.  [Like their other athletes, the east german rowers were all juiced up in the 70s and 80s -- and they were the dominant team]  The chinese made great strides during the past olympiad and were favored to pick up several medals -- for some reason they collapsed at the Olympics.  Many observers thought they were doped.   I'm sure some now think that they cleaned up for the games and became human again).

The chinese gymnast don't show the signs of doping:  Increased musculature.  Remember doping doesn't help you hit a major league curve ball.  There is a lot of skill involved.  

The chinese won in gymnastics because they have a bunch of underaged girls.  The lack of stature and slightly more lean body tissue gives them a small advantage which is often times just enough.  

Remember that Nadia Comăneci got all her perfect 10s in 1976 as a 14 year old.  When she came back as a 18 year old in 1980, she wasn't as good.  She had grown a couple of inches and gained a few pounds.  Her coach had her on a starvation diet to keep her weight down.  She looked emaciated.  They have since outlawed girls under 16 competing in olympic gymnastics.

The chinese women gymnast are cheating the old fashioned way -- without dope.

Answer 8

China's no longer really Communist. But the former communist countries had state controlled economies which enabled their Governments to spend money on whatever they wanted. There was much less accountability for taxes than you got in the West. And some (but not all) of those countries thought it was worth spending money to allow athletes to train, scientists to concoct performance enhancing drugs, coaches to coach and so on. I think they thought that winning medals (and putting people in space, etc.) would lead to prestige for their country and demonstrate that communism worked. Unfortunately, history suggests it didn't.