The Olympic results, with some great early success for South Africa, clearly show who the dominant nations in the world are. The two most powerful nations in the world at the moment are without doubt the United States and China, and as expected they lead the medal totals so far. There are some countries that punch above their weight, largely because they spent a lot of money on promoting sport, like Australia, but otherwise the medals are pretty much won, and surprisingly according to the size of the nation and their economic wealth, with the dominant powers naturally being the two dominant economies in the world at the moment.

It is almost as if the other countries, with perhaps the exception of Japan and Russia, are really scrapping for one or two medals each. South Africa has done very well out of swimming, and it shows you how much the inspiration of somebody like Penny Heyns, many years ago now, has really led to generations of swimmers believing that they can win Olympic gold medals. We take home a few more gold medals every four years than we should, relative to the size of our country and just as the success of Gary Player in golf has inspired generations of golfers to believe that they can compete at any level, we can thank those like Penny Heyns for the success that we now see our swimmers achieve. It is amazing, as it is with all aspects of life, when people see they can win at something, how it encourages a whole lot of more people in that particular country to believe that they are good enough when it comes to that activity to be the best in the world, despite the fact that we will never have the money or the equipment that countries like the United States or Australia can spend on sport.