The Significance of Quality over Quantity at the Olympics

No, darling, you’re not understanding. Australia has 460 athletes at the Olympics. The US has 592, but that’s because the US is competing in more sport, because each team is basically a certain number of set slots. If it was true that we have 12 times as many swimmers, it wouldn’t matter. We could have 100,000 extra swimmers. It doesn’t matter. It just means we leave more people at home. The Olympics is not about who you’re leaving at home. It’s about who you’re taking. For your argument to make sense, one, the size of your team would have to be per capita, proportionately lower than the US, when in fact Australia is sending way more people per capita than the US. And two, to have some sort of reward for the number of people you didn’t take to the Olympics. It doesn’t matter. It literally only matters who you are taking.