Bahamas Goes Gold

From a Bahamas government press release:

"Bahamas Goes Gold" (August 24, 2004)

Tonique Williams-Darling on August 24, 2004, made history by capturing The Islands Of The Bahamas" first individual gold medal in any Olympic Games.

In Athens, Williams-Darling crossed the finish line first in the women"s 400 meters final in a time of 49.41 seconds. She held off stiff competition from Mexico"s Ana Guevara, who finished in 49.56 seconds, and Natalya Antyukh, who crossed the finish line in 49.89 seconds.

"I can"t wait to get home and celebrate," Williams-Darling said from Athens shortly after winning the race.

Christine Amertil, another Bahamian middle distance runner, also competed in the Olympic 400 meters final. She finished seventh in the field of eight runners.

The Bahamas" first Olympic gold came in 1964 for sailing. The only other gold in the Olympic Games came in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, when the women"s 4x100 team finished ahead of the United States" relay team.

The Bahamas" high-level performance at the Olympic Games continues to "defy odds," Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie said. He pointed out that, on a per capita basis, The Bahamas" single medal in Athens could make the country the leading Olympic competitor since The Bahamas has a total population of just 300,000.

"The gold medal performance of Tonique Williams-Darling in the 400 meters women"s final in Athens constitutes a proud Bahamian history," Prime Minister Christie said. "It was a stupendous victory and a historic one at that for it marks the very first time in Olympic history that a woman from the Caribbean has won a gold medal in an individual track event."
Officially, Williams-Darlings" gold medal moved The Bahamas into a three-way tie for 42nd place in medal standings at the Games. United Arab Emirates and Cameroon also stood at 42nd.

More than 200 countries are competing in the XXVIII Olympic Games.

Russell Dames of Bahamas Uncensored, makes an interesting point:

Now the hyperbole began. The Bahamas is a sports power. The Bahamas with less people than Jamaica was more successful per capita than Jamaica. People were calling up the radio talk shows thanking God for the success of the women athletes. ...There were predictions about what The Bahamas will do at the next Olympics and how we were going to win one race or another.

It never occurred to any of the radio call-in guests and their hosts who were engaged in the most interesting sociological psycho-babble about national sports, that the question should be asked, what right does The Bahamas really have to claim the success of these women? Of course the women and the men are Bahamians, but does The Bahamas really support these people in their efforts toward training, in their quest toward the top? The Bahamas eagerly accepts the accolades when they finally do win...

...In the end it is not up to the country anyway. The sports and success at it are really a matter of the individual initiatives.

We should be happy for Tonique Williams Darling and Debbie Fegurson; but it is they who should be proud of their achievements. What we should feel is admiration; what they should feel is pride (the "crown of all virtues"), as it is they--and not us--who worked for their achievements. Often, the two concepts--admiration and pride--are confused.

We can feel proud of living in the Bahamas as we are a free, Western country, with a government that protects our political rights (for the most part), as opposed to Cuba, Iran, or North Korea where individual rights are routinely violated.

So called "National Pride"--as used by today's politicians--is a collectivist version of pride which seeks to grant pride to those who did not earn it and do not deserve it--simply because the pride parasite shares the same nationality (in the case of nationalism), or race (in the case of racism) as the individual(s) who did earn it. In this case, one should not feel pride because of ones actions, but one should feel pride and self-esteem because one shares a morally insignificant characteristic with someone who did achieve something, i.e., race, skin color, birthplace, etc.

The purpose of manufacturing such "National Pride" in statist dictatorships is obvious: where there is no objective reason to love ones country--i.e., one lives in a third world dictatorship where the government treats you as a serf--the politicians in power look for substitutes--in this case Olympic gold medals.

From the Nassau Guardian:

TONIQUE Williams-Darling finally secured a pay check yesterday afternoon in Berlin, Germany synonymous to the fantastic season she has had.

She climaxed her best season ever with another national record yesterday in the TDK Golden League finale to ink her name on the $500,000 cheque for winning all six meets in the series...

...Williams-Darling ran a blistering 49.07 seconds yesterday to win a very fast women's 400 metres. It was done in front of over 60,000 fans at the 63rd ISTAF 2004 at the newly renovated 1936 Olympic stadium in Berlin, Germany.

Williams-Darling's incredible time is a new Bahamian national record, a new world leading time and the fastest in the world since Ana Guevara's 48.89 run at last year's World Championships in Paris, France... ["Tonique wins IAAF JACKPOT! Debbie also win in Berlin", SHELDON LONGLEY]