America’s Import-Export Trade

I have been watching the Olympics the past few days and something occurred to me. The US seems to be exporting Olympians. Even if the USA does not win gold, perhaps we still are? While watching gymnastics, they went through a list of about half a dozen women who are from the US but did not make the team and so decided to compete anyway, but for the country of their parents’ or grandparents’ birth. Or take the example of the French swimmer Léon Marchand. Yes, he really is French, but he specifically sought out and pleaded to attend Arizona State University so that he could work under and receive training from the swimming coach there (who also coached Phelps). It makes me wonder, just how many gold medals is the US “really” winning, this summer?

Incidentally, I just came across a reference to Nandor Nemeth—presumably a distant relation—who seems to be the leading hope for Hungary’s swim team in Paris.

Yes, this is a longstanding trend.

The main reference here is to Léon Marchand, hailed by some as the new Michael Phelps, who trained under Phelps’s coach, Bob Bowman. A native Frenchman, Marchand “competed for Arizona State University and now lives in Austin, Texas.”

Apparently, it’s common for international swimmers to train in Flagstaff because of the benefits of training at altitude. But there is a much larger trend of international athletes training at America universities. For many, it’s the quality of the training that attracts them. For others, particularly those from poorer countries, it’s also the prospect of using an athletic scholarship to get a quality US education and a foothold in the world’s largest economy.

Wikipedia maintains a list of “American universities with Olympic medalist students and alumni.” US universities are, by themselves, a major power in the Olympic games.

By the same token, though, there are American athletes, often with family connections to other countries, who compete for other countries in the Olympics.

“My grandparents, they wanted me to represent Mexico,” said wrestler Austin Gomez. “They wanted me to be a proud Mexican.” In college, Gomez wrestled for Iowa State, Wisconsin, and Michigan last year, where he finished second in the NCAA championships. He was born in the United States and grew up in a Chicago suburb. But if he medals in Paris, it will be for Mexico.

It’s a similar story for Michigan graduate Myles Amine, who will wrestle for San Marino….

Alex Rose carried the Samoan flag in Tokyo. Despite being born and raised in Michigan, his father immigrated from Samoa, so he pays tribute to his roots with a traditional Samoan tattoo and dreams of making history in Paris. “If I were to win an Olympic medal for Samoa, I would be the first male athlete to ever do so,” Rose said. “That would mean everything to the island.”

This is something that has a long history.

Then there is Josh Hawkinson, an American basketball player who has been playing for years for a basketball league in Japan and now competes at the Olympics on the Japanese team.

The Japanese team got noticed this year mostly because of the unintentionally comic effect of pitting a 5’6” player against the French team’s 7’4” Victor Wenbanyama. A French player of partly Congolese descent who is a star in the NBA, Wenbayama symbolizes the international mobility of top athletes.

Last but certainly not least is the history of immigrant athletes competing for America at the Olympics. Some of you may remember a few years back when the runner Lopez Lomong, a refugee from Sudan, was the flag-bearer for the US team at the opening ceremonies.

I wrote recently about a surprise victory by the US cricket team and made an analogy between success in sports and success in every other aspect of economic and creative life.

There is a similar lesson here. The world’s most important export-import trade is in talent. And despite the best efforts of our political leaders, America is still one of its leaders.