Don't expect U.S. dominance in track and field

Universities are also losing interest. Scholarships are way down, especially for males, and colleges looking for a cheap way to meet Title IX requirements are dumping men’s track and wrestling to improve their ratios of male to female athletes. They could do it by creating more women’s sports, but it saves money to eliminate male sports, and they start with the ones people are least interested.

It’s sad that track and field is one of those sports. The ancient Olympics began with a single event, a race of approximately 200 meters called the stade. One presumes that many heats were involved. Otherwise, it would hardly have been worth the trip to watch it. From the name of the race comes the word stadium.

It’s the purest of events, a simple footrace from here to there. The winner got a laurel crown and a lot of free dinners and drinks back home. As the ancient Games grew, winners got more prizes and never had to work another day in their lives — pretty much like today.

Everything else in track and field follows the same template. It’s all about muscle and speed and finding out who’s the best at throwing objects, leaping and vaulting and hurdling over barriers and running various distances. Even if you’ve never seen one of the events before, you’d need no one to explain the action or the scoring. It’s self-evident.

Americans will continue to be among the best in the world at least in the sprints — Tyson Gay may not have made the 100 final, but two other Americans did. But the days of dominance are past; the rest of the world has caught up.

So be disappointed when your guys don’t end up with the shiniest medals, but don’t beat the team up. Think of how much support and interest you’ve shown in the sport in non-Olympic years and ask yourself: Do you deserve any better?

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