Compared to track and field, I’ll give you that swimming requires more coaching and training and such, but compared to other sports, like ice skating and gymnastics, it requires a lot less. And, I can name a few black gymnasts that the USA has had.

I’ll also give you the ocean swimming vs. pool swimming point. However, I will say that Australia is a fine example of how the ocean encourages a pool swimming culture. Over 90% of Aussies live within 50 miles of a beach, and it shows. When I studied abroad down there, the Australian swimming champs were on TV for a week, and it front page sporting news and it’s what the college kids watched in the evenings. Ian Thorpe is that country’s most famous athlete. We even had a dorm swimming competition. Aussies go nuts over swimming, and I think it has to do with everyone having easy access to an ocean.

And yes, blacks have been and are socio-economically disadvantaged, but that is an issue that is bigger than the Olympics. The Olympics can’t be blamed for that paucity of black athletes. And that’s why it’s unfair for Gumbel to pull the race card. Socio-economic, yes. Race, no.

I think this stereotype really is a result of the socio-economics though. You say that swimmers typically come from places with bodies of water nearby, but I’m not sure that’s a good determenant. Ocean swimming is much different from competitive swimming in a pool - where you are confined to one direction and defined distances.

Swimming is in many ways an expensive sport to get into as well. In this country, at least, you really need to join a club to get access to a pool. There are also club teams that swim competitively. You need coaching to prefect your form and build up strength. Even to be a basic swimmer, you really need some sort of lessons to get started - most people do not instinctively know how to swim.

I think that is where the sterotype about black people not being able to swim come from - many black people are socio-economically disadvantaged and cannot afford to learn how to.

As far as which cards to play here, the race card is the queen at best. But you’ve got socio-economic and geographic at king and ace.

Geography is paramount: Name me one predominantly black country where snow and ice are common in winter. There are certainly non-white countries with a presence at the Winter Games: China, Korea, and Japan. What do they have in common? Perhaps winter weather and mountains? Find me a land-locked country who fields a competitive swimming team in the Summer Games.

In today’s gold medal hockey game, can you blame Sweden and Finland for having the demographic that they are? And though it’s not proportional to the makeup of the country’s people, you do see black athletes competing for the USA in men’s speed skating and women’s bobsledding.

And, I’m wondering that Gumbel would have to say about the Summer Games and how he views the world’s greatest athletes in regards to skin color. Who won the gold and silver medals in basketball? Argentina and Italy.

And something I’ve always found interesting… you see very few black swimmers in the Olympics. You see them in the sprints and in the marathons on the track, but not in the water. You see countries like Jamaica and T&T running well in the Olympics, and those countries are surrounded by water. And swimming isn’t an expensive sport. You’d think that they’d field some outstanding swimmers. I’d be curious to see what Gumbel thinks about swimming, because I’ve always wondered myself.

Anyway, I’ve rambled long enough. I will say that CBC did a much better job of covering than NBC did. Though, when you add in CNBC, MSNBC, USA, and Bravo, I thought the US coverage was pretty solid. Just not in primetime. Which sucked for me.