The Olympic Game and the competitive sports

In my mind, the most important event recently is the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Now it has closed already. It is really an excellent event and as a Chinese, I am very proud of that. However, this time, my concern is not on the event itself, I was tormented about a question of the importance for the competitive sports such as Olympic game and I thought I got a point that competitive sports have seldom been anything more that gladiatorial fights.
It is long since the competitive sports have been fun. They often seem to be fought by proxy in the playing fields. In almost every international game, especially in Olympic Games, we see that the attitude of rival countries seem to be that they are at war. A very clear example is the competition of medals between China and the USA, I saw many Chinese concern more about the numbers of the medals they won, not about the process of it and the spirits itself. I think in such an atmosphere, it is ridiculous to say that Olympic Game can introduce the Olympic Spirit to the world and contribute to international harmony. The shocking thing is even friendly countries can take games to the extreme so that emotions run high and often fights break out among the players and among the supporters. It is also shocking that it is all over a game and that people are supposed to be having fun. Fortunately, the Beijing Olympic game does not have such fights, but this situation does mean that none of the competitive sports have the fights. We can see the news of conflicts of the competitive sports nearly every day. We may come up with a question, where do fights happen? Strangely enough, everywhere! Even in so called ‘civilized societies’ such as the Europeans are proud to describe themselves.
Furthermore, why does this happen and what causes sportsmen and their fans even a whole country to go berserk? First of all, it must be assumed that most countries have many reasons for being rivals with each other. Similarly with Singapore and China in women table tennis final, all Singaporean and Chinese are fully aware of the friendliness between the two countries. However , it is also the common knowledge that friendly through the people in 2 countries are towards each other, a spirit of rivalry foes exist, each of us want to win in the finals, China wants to get another gold and but Singapore also wants to get breakthrough in its Olympic history, so the friendly relations just ceases to exist and the rivalry is uncloaked. This is hardly to be expected between friendly countries, the same thing happens in Europe when France, Italy or England football teams plays against each other. They are old friends, yet in football they are virtually enemies, the reason for all this is the overemphasis on patriotism has been responsible for killing men in war, and now it is causing conflicts in games and killing the whole spirit of sportsmanship.
In conclusion, the competitive sports, especially the Olympic game seldom contributes to international harmony and the Olympic spirit. In fact, they seem to promote rivalry and even hatred between countries. Maybe we should ban such sport games for promoting the international harmony.