The swimmers finally came through, racking up seven of a possible eight medals in four finals this morning, and for a moment the Yanks are back ahead in the medals chase.

Someone wanted to know, in our previous “China Will Bury Us” post, how we could characterize the U.S. performance here as spotty.

Well, consider this:

The U.S. has 20 medals, at this writing, and 15 (!) are in swimming. The Yanks have six gold, five in swimming, and three of those are because of Michael Phelps.

Meanwhile, we are non-competitive across entire swaths of the Olympic landscape.

Weightlifting? Nothing doing, after five events. Judo? Oh-for-six events. Nothing so far in cycling, nothing in diving, nothing in archery. A bronze from six events in shooting.

The U.S. medal haul, out of the pool: That curious sweep of the women’s sabre, in fencing; the bronze in shooting and the team bronze the men just won in gymnastics.

The USOC thought it could break through, here or there, in some of the “minor” sports — that count just as much in the medal standings. So far, it’s not happening.

Without swimming, the U.S. team would have no more gold, so far (one, that is), than Romania, India, Thailand (etc.) … and would be tied with France, Japan and North Korea in the overall medal standings, with five.

This team is shaky. If the track and field guys and gals don’t come up big next week, this is going to be the Americans’ worst Olympics since 1988, when the U.S. finished a badly beaten third in the standings, behind the Soviet Union (in its last go-round) and East Germany (also headed for the scrap heap). The tally was 132-102-94.

The USOC made a big deal about reforming and rededicating, after Seoul ’88, and led in medals at the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympics … but a big part of that was the collapse of both the Soviet and East German sports systems.

Now China is a serious player and, like the Soviets and East Germans, focusing on “minor” sports with lots of medals. Where the U.S. can’t be bothered to pay any attention.

Also, those of you who think the Americans are doing well … probably are watching on television, where NBC is in the business of showing you U.S. successes.

Here on the ground, after watching Americans crash out in shooting and judo, etc., it doesn’t look quite so glorious.  It looks dire, actually. China is competitive in everything. The Russians (despite their odd performance so far) generally are, too.

We are really good in two sports with lots of medals (swimming and track), really good in a couple more with one medal (men’s and women’s basketball), decent in one more multi-medal discipline (women’s gymnastics) … and after that?

Trouble with a capital T.