LET’S COUNT THAT AGAIN

New Zealand has always boxed above its weight on the world’s sports fields, but we at BikesportNZ.com feel it is time to look at a new way of tallying up the points.

At the recent Olympics in London, some athletes won, some lost and a few came close-but-not-quite (fourth place) and, from New Zealand’s point-of-view, we think we did pretty well for a country of only four million people.

Is it fair that, when tallying up a medals table, we have to line up alongside China, the United States, Russia or even our friendly rivals from across the Tasman, Australia? All these countries have cities with larger populations than our entire nation.

Then there’s Great Britain (what’s so ‘great’ about them anyway?). They are actually four countries rolled into one – England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. That’s cheating surely?

Why do we have to compare ourselves to other countries, some with vast resources and much larger populations? It’s not a level playing field.

We face these odds at every Motocross of Nations too.

Who said we had to compare ourselves with the brash Americans? For goodness sakes, they have a population of about 314 million (depending on how many have just been given lethal injection for the latest round of mass shootings) and they had a few hundred in their Olympic team. They invest many millions of dollars too in helping them win.

Same with the Motocross of Nations. The Americans turn up with a crew numbering in their hundreds, two bikes for each rider and unlimited parts. (Take a look at the photo above, from the 2009 MXoN in Italy and the one below from the 2006 MXoN in England and you can see what we mean).

Team New Zealand runs virtual cake stalls to get there with their crew of barely half a dozen and we have to loan bikes from friends.

The Chinese and Americans romped home at the London Olympics, dominating the medals table with double figures in medals of all the three varieties (gold, silver and bronze) that are bestowed. Perhaps a fourth would warrant a prize too, a plastic token, and fifth gets a slice of cucumber.

Perhaps the Olympic medals table and the Motocross of Nations standings should undergo a little mathematical manipulation. Perhaps we should divide the total medals or points by that country’s population and then divide again by the number in their Olympic team or track crew.

We’re picking the medals table would look pretty different after that … yay, ‘Go Kazakhstan!’ at the Olympics and ‘Go Team Estonia!’ (7th overall, population 1.3 million), ‘Go Team Latvia!’ (14th overall, 2.2 million) and ‘Go Team New Zealand!’ (15th, population 4.4 million) at the Motocross of Nations!

But does it really matter?

Okay, so everybody likes to win and should sincerely believe they have a chance to.

You don’t think when Josh Coppins was lining up next to Tony Cairoli he was thinking to himself “okay, I’m happy to bust a gut for second or third spot today”. No, he always believed he could win and, on a couple of memorable occasions during his GP career, the Kiwi did win.

Anybody lining up at the GPs or at the Motocross of Nations who didn’t believe in themselves is already a beaten man and may as well pack up and go home.

Bottom line is, though, that there can be only one No.1. Accept that. Celebrate your achievements, minor though they might be, but don’t give up trying.

Of course there’s actually no reason why the smallest country on the planet could not produce the Commonwealth, Olympic, World champions at any particular sport or be the top country at the Motocross of Nations.

Many world champions actually come from very small towns … 10-time motocross world champion Stefan Everts from a little Belgian village called Bree, population 223, and our own former MX2 world champion Ben Townley came from Taupo, population about 23,000.

Do you get our point? All people are pretty equal … two arms, two legs, etc … and it’s not where you’re from but what you do with what you’ve got. It’s not the dog in the fight; it’s the fight in the dog.

It’s also true that countries with population and cash advantages produce more losers too.