day 6

A day of reckoning for some of the world’s least athletic nations.


With the ascent of Slovenia to the top of the medals race with an astonishing .972 of a medal per million citizens, and the dramatic ascent of Mongolia from eighth to second place (with over 70% of a medal per million Mongolians), the American Olympic team (with slightly more than a tenth of a medal to share among each million of its countrymen) is considering withdrawing from the games altogether.


“We’d have to win another 306 medals to take the top position, and with only ten more days of competition, I’m just not sure that even we can do it. That’s, what, more than ten medals a day we’d have to win? Something like that. I just don’t see it. We said it from Day One: Go big or go home. Maybe we just have to face the fact that it’s time to go home.”


 With 1,276 more medal wins needed for China to claim the top spot – assuming no further wins for Slovenia, Mongolia or Qatar – but unwilling to return to their home country in shame, the entire Chinese Olympic delegation is rumoured to have applied for refugee status in either Slovenia or Richmond, British Columbia.


 Quite apart from hopes of massive Chinese immigration – which wouldn’t enhance Olympic chances until 2016 – plucky little Canada has chosen to keep their eyes on the prize. Needing only 27 more medals to politely move past the twenty-two countries ahead of them in the standings, Olympic domination still seems an achievable goal for the Canucks.


 Tomorrow, though, is a day of reckoning – well, another day of reckoning – for all forty-nine countries on the admittedly crowded medal podium. Every eye will be on Asenate Manoa as she runs the 100 metres on Friday: a third-place showing would crush the hopes of most competitors, giving her home nation of Tuvalu (pop. 10,000) a Medals Per Million rating of 100. “It would move that dang goal-post just a bit too far even for us,” remarked one already-chastened American, recognizing that winning another thirty-one thousand, three hundred and sixty four medals is unlikely. “The numbers guys say we wouldn’t probably catch ‘em till about halfway through the 3266 Games. And I don’t wanna even think what’ll happen if they win another medal sometime in the next twelve hundred years.”