Hilariously, an air pistol shooter has been stripped of his two medals for doping. I never gave shooting enough credit as a sport to imagine that performance-enhancing drugs could be a factor.

According to the IOC, the shooter [Kim Jong Su of Korea] tested positive for propranolol, a banned substance used to prevent trembling.

The good news is that they caught him. But it makes you wonder even more about the sports where drugs can really give athletes an edge. Only three athletes have tested positive for drugs so far in Beijing.

The Summer Olympics just keep getting bigger. There are 302 gold medals up for grabs in Beijing. That’s a gold medal every 47 minutes for the sixteen-day span of the games. Doesn’t sound so special when it’s put that way, does it? But is that BMX gold medal really as significant as the historic one Michael Phelps won last night? No, and there are good reasons why. Follow the jump for an in-depth analysis of the most valuable gold medals and the sports that don’t even deserve to be in the Olympics.

Boosted by gold medals today in shooting, judo, weightlifting and synchronised diving, China drew even with the US in the overall medal count. After two days of competition both China (6-2-0) and the US (2-2-4) have won 8 medals.

With a gold-silver-bronze sweep in the women’s sabre (fencing) earlier today the United States has jumped to an early lead in the overall medal count. China, currently sitting in second, won gold in both the men’s 10m air pistol and the women’s 48kg weightlifting competitions.

The medal counts of the United States and China will be closely watched at these Olympics. The US has won the medal count at the last several summer games, but China has inched closer and closer each time. Historically, the host country always enjoys a spike in total medals won. In Athens, the US had 102 medals; China was second with 63.