Financial Times FT.com

Outside Edge: Fool’s gold consoles unloved America

By Matthew Engel

Published: August 22 2008 19:25 | Last updated: August 22 2008 19:25

There were not many journalists from non-combatant nations present in the remote corner of Beijing where Japan played the US in the Olympic women’s softball final on Thursday night.

But a Scandinavian sat opposite me in the press room afterwards. We exchanged conspiratorial smiles: the Americans had lost and that always goes down well with everyone else at the Olympics.

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