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Team USA To Be Decked Out in Uniforms Made in China

Khayembii Communique said:
THis is by far the dumbest ****ing thing I have ever heard a politician whine about. Harry Reid is a ****ing moron and so is anyone that gives a **** where these are made.
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You should check out the Yahoo message boards on this.

It's like 95% hate that the USOC and Lauren didn't make it in the US.
 
johnny_rebson said:
It could be a retro look, like when the East Germans and Russians made their women look like men.
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yeah the only way you could tell an East German female 400 meter from the rear vs a male East German 400 meter runner was the bikini briefs the females wore
 
obvious Child said:
It;s not just that.

The USOC is not funded by the government but lives off of Corporate Sponsorships and apparel sales.

Buying from China is cheaper. Which means there is more money to support American athletes.

What matters more, wearing clothing made in America that will only be worn once OR racking up medals?

People need to get some damn perspective. I'd be appalled if they went with an American manufacturer and it cost them sending more Americans to compete.
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I am not aware of an athlete who made the A qualifying standards and won a place on the team but who could not go due to funding. (Of course many cannot make the team due to funding issues when they are training.) In modern times, the only time our athletes qualified and could not compete was due to Carter. Racking up medals of course and as I noted, in several olympic sports I am quite familiar with, we have to use foreign made gear. On the other hand, almost every archer in the olympics will use Easton X10 arrows. There really is no competition there-a few might use Korean Cartel Triples or Asian made Carbon Express Nano-Pros but of the 128 archers 120 at least will use American made Eastons. as to the bows-Hoyt (USA) PSE (USA riser-Korean Limbs) will be what our Olympic team uses-foreign competitors will use lots of Hoyt, lots of Korean Win Win or Samick and that is pretty much the lot of it American made bow sights along with Japanese will be prevalent and American, French, German, Japanese and Korean stabilization systems will be featured.

In the shooting sports-Germany and Italy dominate
 
TurtleDude said:
I am not aware of an athlete who made the A qualifying standards and won a place on the team but who could not go due to funding. (Of course many cannot make the team due to funding issues when they are training.)
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That's the real problem. Once an athlete makes it to a certain point, they generally can find SOMEONE to sponsor them. But until then, we need the USOC to fund them until they get there. The more we save on stuff like clothing, the more we can spend to bring up our athletes to the stage where they can find their own funding and the bigger our medal count gets.

In the end, does anyone remember what they wore verse how many medals we took?
 
obvious Child said:
That's the real problem. Once an athlete makes it to a certain point, they generally can find SOMEONE to sponsor them. But until then, we need the USOC to fund them until they get there. The more we save on stuff like clothing, the more we can spend to bring up our athletes to the stage where they can find their own funding and the bigger our medal count gets.

In the end, does anyone remember what they wore verse how many medals we took?
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I agree-and since I am on the board of one governing body and highly active in two others I can tell you that in some cases the USOC demand for olympic medals has caused lots of upset members who -in one NGBs case-has referred to it as a "ponzi" scheme where thousands of members are paying dues and fees to support 6 athletes because USOC funding is based on medal count. We could also discuss whether participation is more important than medal count but that is for another time and place. I also note that we are top heavy in some sports and very thin in others-something the chinese don't worry about. There are about 15 potential decathlon gold medalists playing in NFL backfields and we'd kick butt in team handball or volleyball if we diverted a couple dozen NBA level high school kids to those sports. Someone like Tiger Woods would be pure hell as an archer, a rifle shooter, or yes-a curler. can you imagine someone like Dr. J or David Thompson in their prime playing volleyball or team handball? 51" vertical jump-sort of hard to block that
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Im with Harry on this one. Make **** in America if your the damn American team. If that is so crazy so be it. But hey American made by American jobs for Americans. Not slave labor or child labor from China...
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They are American athletes, not American clothes makers. This is total bull****.
 
American said:
This is total bull****.
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Why?

The article states that not only could the uniforms have been made in America, but they could have been made cheaper.

There's no performance advantage, and no financial advantage to having the uniforms made in China.

However, there's an ethical equation here to consider.

Have you heard the phrase: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

Americans need jobs. Americans love their Olympic athletes. Wouldn't it be great to let American workers do as much as they possibly can to help the athletes in any way possible? Even if it's just making the ceremonial "costumes"?

It's simple ethics and pride here.

1) Could have been made in America
2) At a cheaper price
3) In no way,shape, or form puts any performance of our athletes at a disadvantage.
4) Puts money in American workers bank accounts

Do you really think it's bullsh!t for people to want that to happen?????????

It's wrong for Americans to want a win-win-win situation for all of us?
 
American said:
They are American athletes, not American clothes makers. This is total bull****.
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If you are representing you country i believe you should wear clothes made by fellow country men dont you think? Instead of using cheap slave sweat shop labor in a mega factory in China... I thought this was almost a common sense kind of thing?
 
Has anyone noted that when Romney ran the last Olympics, the torch-bearer uniforms were made in Burma/Myanmar ... a brutal militay dictatorship -- which was met by howls of protest from human rights groups? The Romney-led IOC indignantly replied that the uniforms were made in Myanmar -- NOT BURMA!! Err, they're the same place, Mitt. :lamo

Maybe this is why Romney has been silent on the Chinese uniforms, despite is over-the-top trade war talk?
 
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TheDemSocialist said:
If you are representing you country i believe you should wear clothes made by fellow country men dont you think? Instead of using cheap slave sweat shop labor in a mega factory in China... I thought this was almost a common sense kind of thing?
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I wonder where Obama's suits are made.
 
American said:
I wonder where Obama's suits are made.
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So this is Obama issue now? Cool.. Idk. Probably China. Am i some sort of Obama nut all the sudden again American?
If you havent noticed ive been pretty consistent on my stance with China no matter if your a dem or a repub.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
If you are representing you country i believe you should wear clothes made by fellow country men dont you think? Instead of using cheap slave sweat shop labor in a mega factory in China... I thought this was almost a common sense kind of thing?
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perhaps but if by buying cheaper foreign stuff that has absolutely no influence on performance might mean more money for training, more money for some competitively superior gear like a new track bike or a new swimsuit that decreases time while being within the current rules. or better coaching. Lots of our coaches are foreign. The men's archery team-which has struggled since Sydney is coached by Korean Kisik Lee. The table tennis team is coached by a foreigner, the fencing coach in some games has been a European. Many of the sports equipment is foreign made. I guarantee you all the tennis players, badminton players and table tennis players are using racquets made in Asia (though a couple of the table tennis players might be using some German made bats or inverted rubber). I used to shoot on the ISU circuit-Not too many of us were using American made guns-Germany dominated rifles (Anschutz, Walther, Feinwerkbau) and had some good shotguns, Krieghoff (my sponsor) while Italian Berettas and Perazzis (Gold Medalists Vince Hancock and Kim Rhode respectively) shotguns were the most popular.

the good news-several major countries lady gymnasts use American made Leotards and while I don't know where Speedos are made, its a US company and it is huge in swimming.
 
TurtleDude said:
perhaps but if by buying cheaper foreign stuff that has absolutely no influence on performance might mean more money for training, more money for some competitively superior gear like a new track bike or a new swimsuit that decreases time while being within the current rules. or better coaching. Lots of our coaches are foreign. The men's archery team-which has struggled since Sydney is coached by Korean Kisik Lee. The table tennis team is coached by a foreigner, the fencing coach in some games has been a European. Many of the sports equipment is foreign made. I guarantee you all the tennis players, badminton players and table tennis players are using racquets made in Asia (though a couple of the table tennis players might be using some German made bats or inverted rubber). I used to shoot on the ISU circuit-Not too many of us were using American made guns-Germany dominated rifles (Anschutz, Walther, Feinwerkbau) and had some good shotguns, Krieghoff (my sponsor) while Italian Berettas and Perazzis (Gold Medalists Vince Hancock and Kim Rhode respectively) shotguns were the most popular.

the good news-several major countries lady gymnasts use American made Leotards and while I don't know where Speedos are made, its a US company and it is huge in swimming.
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Interesting. What started out as a sports competition between nations has become international. How is that going to work out in the end? Will nations recruit athletes the way colleges do?
 
We certainly have fallen a long way down the rabbit hole when the right wing makes it a cause celebre to buy foreign rather than American.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Interesting. What started out as a sports competition between nations has become international. How is that going to work out in the end? Will nations recruit athletes the way colleges do?
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I can tell you that China has more world class table tennis players than the rest of the world combined and while their top three have lost to sweden or germany's top three if it was a contest of 25 vs 25 China would never ever lose

so China allows players who cannot or are no longer good enough to represent china (China often switches their players often so other countries never get used to the various and complex service motions or spin on the loop drive which is the most common attacking stroke that can have tremendous variations in side and top spin as well as speed and height) they are released to go to other nations. Our Olympic team features only native born Chinese-Americans because our top lady player-who was in the quarters last time -got hurt-she is from China as is David Zuang (sp) who was on our team at least-2-3 times

at the US Open in 1993 the semi finals was between our best Chinese immigrant-Chen Yinguah Playing Canada's best Chinese former team member "Johnny Huang"

Austria's best player is Chinese. Chinese players are as common on national teams as american basketball players used to be in Euro Leagues.

its a controversial subject

our archery team features Khatuna Lorig who has been to five olympics-Once for the unified Team (bronze) once for Georgia and three times for US (maybe she was twice for Georgia-I know she shot for us in 2008 and this year-in 04 she might have been living here but competing for georgia)

the controversy is that the USOC wants medals and foreigners in sports we are weaker in-like table tennis, badminton, handball , rhythmic Gymnastics etc-increase our chances. on the other hand, some would say it hurts the development of natural born players to be edged out by superior foreign athletes who come from better developed systems.

we could fill a whole thread about that
 
haymarket said:
We certainly have fallen a long way down the rabbit hole when the right wing makes it a cause celebre to buy foreign rather than American.
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People can buy whatever they want from where ever they damn well please. I don't frankly care what the right wing supported when you were a wee teen either or what they do now for that matter.
 
Henrin said:
People can buy whatever they want from where ever they damn well please. I don't frankly care what the right wing supported when you were a wee teen either or what they do now for that matter.
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Of course you don't. You and others on the right have made it very clear that buying American means less to you than a bag of garden manure and buying foreign is some sort of receiving communion at the altar of free trade.

You have made that very very clear.
 
Of course you don't. You and others on the right have made it very clear that buying American means less to you than a bag of garden manure and buying foreign is some sort of receiving communion at the altar of free trade.
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Buying American shouldn't mean anything to anyone.
 
Such a silly non-issue.

The USOC is a private non-profit, privately-funded; it can do as it wishes.

The far more important result of its spending is:

USA.jpg
 
Dragonfly said:
I'm sure the millions and millions of unemployed Americans are happy to agree with you. :roll:
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I doubt very much many of them care.
 
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