WWTBAM Bored

Whenever I look at the medal counts on the official site, the countries are listed by number of gold medals won. So, for instance, China has 13 gold medals right now, so they are listed as number one, and the United States has 7 gold medals so they are listed as number two.

In the newspaper, the medal count is by total medals won. So, because the US has 22 total medals, the are ranked number one and China, with 20 medals, is number two.

The official site is how the world views the medal count.

The newspapers report it so the U.S.'s feelings don't get hurt.

Over the years, the newspapers have been known to count differently -- "by golds" or "by all medals" -- depending on which they think will sound best for their readers.

Consistency: a mere piffle.

I think the best compromise would be to rank nations according to the most silver medals.

TheConfessor wrote:I think the best compromise would be to rank nations according to the most silver medals.

Just list 'em alphabetically. The rest of the world will be happy since that puts the U.S. down near the bottom. Americans will be happy because they can quickly go to the bottom of the list and ignore the rest of the world.

How about using a GPA-type system?

Gold = 3 pts., Silver = 2 pts, Bronze = 1 pt. Total 'em up and just print a number.