Sunday, August 24, 2008

An Olympian Trade Deficit...

I'm an Olympic junkie and was watching the interview with gold medalist Shawn Johnson, her coach Liang Chow, and Bela Karolyi.

Bela (who for those of you who don't know gained fame as coach of Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton) has shown his disappointment with the judging of the gymnastics throughout the Olympics.

With Shawn's victory (and the performance of Nastia Liukin), however, he said that "it was once again shown to the world that American gymnastics is the best there is."

That may be true, but while he was talking and then Shawn's coach, who was born in China, something dawned on me.

The gymnasts were all born in the US, but their coaches are all imports.

Karolyi (and his wife, Marta, who coaches the US team) came from Romania.
Chow is a native of China.
Valery Liukin (Nastia's father and coach) is from Russia.

America may be the home of great gymnasts, but great coaches are born elsewhere.

Hmmmm...I wonder if the protectionists will say that we should ban the import of Gymnastics coaches so we can keep the domestic market alive?

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