The Olympics aren’t always just about the games.
 

This was illustrated in the 1980 Lake Placid games. It was during the height of the Cold War and the United States had a young team of college players that took on and beat the established and nearly undefeated Soviet team. The American victory was not merely one of athletic ability; the victory was a symbol of American endurance and passion. At the time, the Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan, a move that further strained its relationship with the United States, causing President Jimmy Carter to boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
 

The 1980 Moscow Games were the only Olympic events ever boycotted by the United States, but they were not the last time our country would have issue with the host nation. In 2008, China hosted the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. There were worldwide protests and calls for boycotting the opening ceremonies. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was among those who had qualms with attending the ceremony.
 

The majority of the controversy was over Chinese control of Tibet and other aspects of their human rights policies. Barack Obama, who was still a senator at this time, felt that we should focus on the unity of the world’s nations at the Olympics. Meanwhile, a feisty Hillary Clinton responded to the protests in France by calling on the president to boycott the ceremonies until significant change in Chinese policy came. The Bush administration decided to attend the ceremonies, where he sat next to Valdimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister. This seating arrangement was a demonstration of the progress between the relations of the United States and Russia since the boycott nearly 30 years earlier.
 

The seating arrangement of the world leaders at the Olympic opening ceremonies is not the only way to gauge international affairs—one only has to look at the medal counts from the past Olympic Games to see which countries have been—and are—world leaders. In the first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, the United States, Greece and Germany led the medal count. Throughout the 20th century, the historical shifts in power can be found in the Olympic medal count tables.
 

While the United States has always stayed within the top five–typically the top three–leaders in medals, one could see the rise of German power after World War I as the number of medals that country won gradually rose. After World War II, the Soviet Union came out of nowhere and took second in the medal count of the 1952 Olympics. The Soviets’ strength and influence was apparent in both summer and winter Olympics from that point on, placing in the top three in every Olympic game until the 1994 Winter Olympics.
 

The rise and fall of the Soviet Union is not the only power shift apparent from the medal counts of Olympic games. The rise of power in the Asian countries can be mapped by their strength in the Olympics. Japan was the first Asian country to participate in the Olympics in 1956 and never placed in the top 10 in the medal count. It wasn’t until the 1990s that more than one Asian country participated and the Winter Olympics and each year China, South Korea and Japan grow stronger in the medal counts.  The Summer Olympics reveal a similar trend: China has placed in the top three since 1996.
 

The shifts in international political power are clearly represented in the medal count of the Olympic Games. As China becomes more of an international superpower, we can expect great things from the Chinese athletes.

Claire Sanderson is a junior CCPA and political science double major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].