The national Olympic committee of Yemen's annual budget is about $370,000, all of which comes from outside the country, mostly from the International Olympic Committee. That money supports 16 sports and feeds a staff of 21. Each lives on roughly $200 per month. There is no government funding. “They don’t have the budget anymore,” the secretary general of the Olympic committee, Mohammed Al-Ahjeri, 66, said here Tuesday.

This, though, is not a story about pity for Yemen. Far from it.

This is a story about the true meaning of the Olympics.

What it means, ultimately, to “win.”