2008 Beijing Olympics medal count?

Question

why is the US on top when clearly China has more golds? in the past the standings where based on gold medals not the total. so why now the sudden change?

(this is based on what i see on tv here in the US)

if you look at other websites from other countries most of them will have china on top. so why is it diffrent here?

Answer 1

probably media bias.

where i live countries are ranked by gold, silver and bronze.

Answer 2

REAL ANSWER IS BELOW

The real reason that you cannot definitely decide which country is better is because the IOC does not even separate medals by country. Their reason is that originally, the Olympics were only an individual sport and that only the individuals were counted. It did not matter what province or city that person was from. Only the individual was. To prove my point, there were no team sports in the original Olympics-- no track relays or anything, because that was not an individual sport. To break this down by country with whatever formula is bound to cause conflict and rightfully so, it is not in the spirit of the original games. My opinion is that total medal count with some extra emphasis on gold should be the standard, but again this is against the true spirit of the ancient Olympics.  

Answer 3

The American don't want to lose their face and they just can't accept they are the second. *if your IQ is 85 or over you could probably figure out it.      

Answer 4

Ok your not the first person to ask this question and it has been debated to the end of time almost.  The obvious truth is that the medal count is not the gold medal count.  It never has been.  When you look up past results of Olympics, they have the total medal count country in the lead not total gold medals.  It is important to remember there are more medals than just gold and that should not be ignored.  However, I do think the conflict is mainly because of the importance that is put on golds.  That is all it seems the world thinks about which begs to question the real purpose of the games, get golds or just compete against others at the best level you can.  Maybe the world and the US in general needs a big swift kick in the bum on what the Olympics should really mean.

Answer 5

Thanks mate. I am Aussie and have been watching the Olympics for years. Suddenly Americans are trying to tell me it is the number of medals that matters and not the number of "Olympic Champions".

I don't think so. Only Olympic Champions receive the gold.

Next thing you know 'some' Americans will be counting up the number of diplomas awarded to 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th!

Answer 6

It could be like auto-racing.  You could come in 2d and 3rd in every race in the season and still win the whole championship.  I guess there's needs to be an official point-scrore for each medal (maybe 10 gold, 5 silver, 2 bronze).

There should be an offical decision on this to settle it once and for all.

Answer 7

www.nbcolympics.com