No preference given

Fox News executive editor John Moody has completely misunderstood the position of the United States Olympic Committee and its desire for more diversity in selecting athletes for the winter games in the Olympics. While not directly expressing this, he implies that the USOC, by making the U.S. team “darker, gayer, different,” is deliberately selecting athletes because they are part of a minority. “Complaining that every team isn’t a rainbow of political correctness defeats the purpose of sports, which is competition. At the Olympic level, not everyone is a winner,” he says.

Out of the 242 athletes on the U.S. team, 10 are African American and 11 are of Asian heritage, for a total of a little over 8 percent of the American team. That is a slight uptick from previous teams, but the overwhelming majority of the current team is white. But the athletes selected had to earn their spot through competition. Despite what Moody asserts, this is in line with the Olympic goal of “Faster, Higher, Stronger.” This means that all persons are welcome to participate in the Olympics, even as a member of the U.S. winter team.

What the USOC desires is to increase minority participation in winter sports throughout the United States at all levels. That would increase the pool from which athletes would ultimately gain a spot in the Olympics. If this is done, the population of the U.S. team in the future would look more like the population of the U.S. in percentage terms. While USOC has this as a goal, it realizes that attaining this will take years of effort.

In doing this, no preference will be given to a particular athlete despite the color of skin or sexual preference and so on.

BILL MOUROT

Little Rock