While the Olympic Games were wrapping up in Tokyo, I was actually in Washington visiting with old friends.
It was my first visit to the U.S. capital since June of 2019. And despite the many things that were happening across the country at the time: COVID-19 cases were spiking again, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned and the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, the most discussed topic among our group was the number of gold medals the U.S. Olympic team was winning. America at the time was behind China in the gold medal tally.
My friend told me he was not happy with the number of U.S. gold medals. I said, “Why are you so obsessed with the number of medals? China won 35 and the U.S. 34. It is just a one gold medal difference, isn’t it? It hardly makes much difference to me.”