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we did see examples of extremely - well, it goes so far beyond poor sportsmanship as to no longer fit the term - but it jumped out so very sharply at us precisely because good sportsmanship - friendship - was everywhere.

And yet, ideology never left. Not for the Chinese. Not for anyone.

By the second week, I was starting to feel very sorry for every United States athlete who had been favoured to win and didn't, who fell just short of the coveted - and needed - gold, never mind how personally exceptional so many of those performances were. That pressure can't have been pleasant.

It may be time for all of us to re-evaluate.

We know now what absolute multi-level focus can do. Thus the question may no longer be one of whether or not to set out to win a medal, preferably gold in colour, but what parts of our culture we are willing to sacrifice or adapt to do so. On a fast track, did Ruqaya Al Ghasara's hijab cost her the 0.09 seconds from her 22.72 time that she would have needed to qualify for the women's 200 metre finals? Did it contribute to her 0.259 starting time, the slowest of any of the semifinalist runners?

Will we keep trying to balance off athletic success against a financial bottom line?How much do we value the double-specialist ability of our athletes to enter a second, non-athletic career? Do we value our beliefs of what childhood ought to be more than we value the medals they could win?

Is there anything more important than winning the most medals? Should there be?

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