I don’t care about the medal race that a lot of people and countries obsess about, as if winning Olympic medals somehow tells us something positive about that country (one could argue the opposite). Still, I found it odd that the medal table of the official Beijing 2008 website ranks countries based on the number of gold medals it has won. Of course, it’s just a coincidence that China happens to lead in that category but is second in overall medals.
By Jim Buzinski
6 responses so far ↓
1 Jeanne // Aug 16, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Hilarious! What a huge conspiracy against the poor underdog: the U.S.A.!
Check some newspapers: Russia, Germany, Australia, Brazil, Spain, GB, South Africa, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, Argentina - all of them are part of that consipiracy: they have been for decades and decades! What a scandal!
But at least Al Jazeera got their facts straight - they bravely decided to count the medals like the underdog. All the others became China’s subordinates in this piss-competition between China and the big, big underdog.
2 golfer // Aug 16, 2008 at 4:38 pm
This isn’t anti-American bias. Most of the world ranks countries using gold medal count (including the IOC itself, though unofficially). The Wall Street Journal wrote about this a few days ago:
http://www.wsj.com/article/SB121856271893833843.html
3 DaveO // Aug 16, 2008 at 4:46 pm
This is the way it’s been done for decades.
4 Jim Buzinski // Aug 16, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Well, I admit I was wrong in not knowing that most of the rest of the world ranks by golds first, but I won’t be so lame as to edit the post. My stupidity is on view for all to see.
The WSJ article is interesting. I propose a system of golds counting for 3 points, silver 2 and bronze 1. Under this, China would have 114 points and the US 102.
FYI: I was not alleging anti-Americanism and couldn’t care less if US jocks win or lose. One reason I love the Olympics is the chance to see athletes from all over the world.
5 canmark // Aug 17, 2008 at 9:41 am
Yes, it would seem that the bias is on the American foot, as many U.S. media outlets are showing the medal counts based on total medals, while international sources (CBC, BBC, Australia Olympic committe) all rank by golds.http://stats.cbc.ca/olympics_medals.asp?sort=goldhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/medals_table/default.stmhttp://www.olympics.com.au/ScheduleAndResults/FullMedalTally/tabid/368/Default.aspx?link=368&
6 Dahuan Zhou // Aug 17, 2008 at 7:47 pm
The value of gold medal is obviously greater than that of the silver or bronz,mathematically, one gold medal plus one silver medal is still one gold medal plus one silver medal,because they are different things and could not be added togather.
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