So what do you do when you have a $75 lead against your betting counterpart who is also your British girlfriend? You risk it all on black, or should I say U.S. gold.
That is what I stupidly did over the last two weeks of the London 2012 Olympic Games. With a 75 dollar lead over Nicki, I threw it all on one simple bet:
The United States of America also known simply as TEAM ‘MERICA, will have more gold medals than the European Union
I based my supreme overconfidence in the simple fact that America is better than the European Union in all things sports (except futbol).
But the problem with this Nwokedi assumption is I overlooked two facts: number of Olympic athletes oftentimes trump athletic prowess in the Olympic Games, and the European Union is freaking large … So much for that global Darden education I paid for!
With 27 countries and 3,695 Olympians, the European Union is far far larger than I realized.
Team Great Britain alone has 541 Olympic athletes!
As a quick point of comparison, the United States has a total of 530 Olympians while The People’s Republic of China has 396 Olympians
I guess a simple Google search on “The European Union & Olympic athletes” or “list of member countries in the EU” might have been enough for me to avoid the shellacking I just endured.
Then again my name is Brian Uchenna Nwokedi and blind pride is something that I do, as all of you following this blog know too well!
So with that, Nicki goes into football season and the start of the Premier League with a blank slate and I go in with my pride wounded and a higher degree of skepticism for all bets put forward by Ms. Allen =)
My favorite 2012 Olympic moments:
1. David Rudisha beats his own world record in the 800m run
2. Oscar Pistorius competes in the London Games and swaps numbers with Kirani James
3. The Mckayla Maroney face after she loses gold to Sandra Raluca Izbasa
