Do you think it is more impressive to have more gold medals or to have more medals overall?

Question

As of the latest count, China has a total of 50 medals - 28 gold, 13 silver and 9 bronze.

The USA has 57 medals, but only 17 of them are gold. 18 are silver and 22 are bronze.

So, are you more impressed with 57 medals, with only 17 of them being gold? Or are you more impressed with 50 medals, with almost half of them gold?

And WHY?

Answer 1

More Gold

Silver & Bronze are great but finishing 1st is what the athletes are here for.

Answer 2

More gold the better.

It is not good to be Jack of all trades but Master of none.  Right?

Answer 3

for purposes of determining the best of the best it has always been the Gold that counts in the olympics. that;s why im shocked and scandalized how the US media including Yahoo! represent the USA as leading in the Olympics. Overall medal count is one big, sick charade to instill in the minds of the americans that they are still no. 1. Dont get me wrong.. China is a far worse country than USA. and i love the USA and its people. But in the spirit of fairplay let us all be objective. China owns USA in this olympics.  

Answer 4

I think I'd rather win 100 Silver and Bronze medals, compared to just 1 Gold medal.  The former indicates I excelled ove a longer period of time.

Answer 5

I would say more Gold because Gold means that you were the best. But it shouldn't really be about the medals...

Answer 6

hmmm...if we're talking overall all for countries then it's better to have more overall in my opinion.

Answer 7

I think it's impressive to win medals fairly.  Who knows how many of China's medals are tainted...starting with their preschool gymnastics team.

Answer 8

I think it is good to look at the total won because you don't talk about someone losing when they get silver or bronxe you say they WON the silver or bronze. If you look at most of the silver/bronze medal winners they are THRILLED to have won the medals as most never thought it possible . Most events it isnot a foregone conclusion like Phelps so although Gold is an overall win, the fact that we give medals for 2nd and 3rd place means they should be counted. Look at Australia in the medals table as an example, they have 29 overall but Germany with 19 overall are sitting above them in the table. I think the Australian team as a whole would be happier with that result then the Germans with theirs.

Answer 9

I've felt for a long while now that the Olympics should be one big competition decided by all the independent competitions.

It would be simple

Golds would be worth 3 pts

Silvers would be worth 2 pts

Bronzes would be worth 1 pt

then when all the competitions are done the scores are tallied using the scoring system above and at the closing ceremony the top 3 nations would each get gold silver and bronze respectively. And the 3 ppl on the podium would be the president/prime minister/head of state.

as of right now the standings would be

China 203 pts

USA 160 pts