Claire Harvey: Preening patriotism mocks the true Olympic ideal

No nationalistic strutting: that's the message United States officials have delivered their athletes at the Winter Olympics in Turin.

American athletes have been ordered to refrain from preening, prancing or otherwise showing off during these Games, and were strictly supervised by team officials as they marched into the Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony to ensure there was none of the embarrassing exuberance exhibited by US athletes at previous Games.

It might sound strange to issue a ban on patriotism at an event overloaded with so many trumpet-tootling anthems, but US Olympic Committee chief executive Jim Scherr says as the continuing carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan make America's international image ever more troubled, the nation's Olympic representatives must not present themselves in any way which invites accusations of arrogance.

"There's a sensitivity to how our country is viewed in the world today. If you're from another country, it might be overlooked, but we have to be careful what we do," Scherr says.

This overdue edict is the result of some appalling behaviour by American athletes in the past.

During the formal procession of teams into the Opening Ceremony of the Seoul Olympics in 1988, some of the more showpony members of the US team became so overexcited by the fun of flexing their steroid-enhanced muscles, pulling faces at the crowd and dancing in circles that they trampled over other nations' teams and delayed the entire parade.

At the 2000 Olympics, four male American sprinters - known (mainly to themselves, and possibly their mums) as the "Dream Team" - won their 4x100m relay then staged a victory lap more suited to the swimsuit-straining finals of a Mr Universe beefcake contest, clenching their buttocks and poking their tongues at the cameras while the defeated runners waited for the medal ceremony to start.

That earned a rebuke from USA Track and Field, which described the display as "disconcerting", forced relay team captain Jon Drummond to apologise and promised to ensure better behaviour in future.

Also at the Sydney Games, another bunch of Americans (also describing themselves as the Dream Team - there's a theme here) won the basketball final, then carried out a deeply unfortunate display of self-congratulation, tying American flags around their heads like bandanas, punching the air and pounding their chests like little King Kongs.

It's nice to see the USOC acknowledging the need for restraint, because the real point of the Olympics is not nationalism, or patriotism - and especially not all that waffle about the Olympic Truce and the "spirit of Olympism" that the puffed-up porkpies of the International Olympic Committee like to lecture about.

There are a record 2300 officials from the IOC and various national Olympic committees at these Games, by the way, to complement the 10,000 "sponsors' guests" and 1600 staff of the Organising Committee.

The real point of the Olympics, surely, is the celebration of the athletes' personal stories. The real Olympic ideal is individualism, but of a wholly positive sort; uncomplicated dedication to a goal, control of the mind, discipline of the body, effort over sloth, push-ups over potato chips.

It's not alchemy or world peace, it's just being determined enough to accomplish ridiculously difficult things while wearing very tight outfits.

One of the best individual stories at the Torino Games comes from within the US team. American skier Toby Dawson has just won bronze in the freestyle moguls, and he is hoping the publicity associated with his achievement will help him find his parents.

Twenty-four years ago, Korean-born Dawson was dumped as a toddler on the streets of Busan City, sent to an orphanage and then adopted by American ski-instructor couple Mike and Deborah Dawson, who took him to grow up in the snowfields of Colorado.

Today, he is an elite sportsman with a fortune in sponsorship deals and prizemoney, but he still yearns to meet his real mother and father, and has posted photographs of himself as a baby on the internet in the hope that they might come and claim him.

If everything goes right, this year might prove a partial redemption of the Olympic spirit. Maybe no more IOC members will be caught accepting kickbacks or greasing the gravy-train

Only one IOC member has been busted for embezzlement in the past fortnight, and the IOC Ethics Commission is actually considering ejecting him from the "Olympic Family", so that must be a good start.

Maybe we won't have too many drug busts. Maybe no American or other athletes will perform any cringe-making antics.

And maybe Toby Dawson's mum and dad will give him a call.