A study of American Olympians released today found that 98 percent of those competing in Athens find other countries’ national anthems stupid. Two percent think they are just boring.

“U.S. Olympians by a huge margin dislike having to listen to the national anthems of other nations,” said Nancy Grazban, a USOC staffer who conducted the research. “In fact, they hate it and many would rather poor boiling water directly onto their eardrums than have to listen to anymore of the pathetic dirges that supposedly honor these foreign craplands.”

U.S. swimming star Michael Phelps said his intense dislike of foreign anthems led to his recent gold medal streak. “I got back-to-back bronzes at the beginning of the games and was subjected to the musical suck that is the South African and Australian anthems,” said Phelps. “I don’t plan to lose again simply because I don’t want to have to mock reverence for some country’s retarded ditty. Just more ‘oh say can you see’ for me, please.”

Amada Beard, who won gold on Thursday in the 200-meter breaststroke, said she is confused to even why other countries have national anthems.

“I mean, what is that they have to be so proud about anyway?” asked Beard. “Oooh – you won some naval battle back in the 1700s against some other dumb little country nobody cares about anymore. What have you done for me lately? U-S-A, baby. U-S-A.

U.S. gymnast Carly Patterson, who took gold in the women’s gymnastics individual all-around and silver in the team competition, echoed Beard’s sentiments. “Until these other countries become as great as we are, I say they just keep their songs to themselves. They’d be better of just standing silently and thinking about what they need to do to be like us. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to jab a knife into my ears when we had to listen to Romania’s anthem the other night. Ooh – Romania. There’s a really great friggin’ country. Poverty rocks.”

“The anthem I hate the most is Japan’s,” said U.S. swimmer Brendan Hansen. “It’s all da-da-da-da-dum-dum-dee-dum-dum. I’m standing there thinking: ‘Seriously, you people couldn’t come up with something better than this?’ And the guy was even tearing up. I guess because his anthem sucked so bad.”