How do you know who wins the Olympics?

Question

Do they look at the total medals or just how many gold?

Answer 1

There isn't one winner in the Olympics.  If you have to pick a winner, look at the list of countries who have entered the Olympics. They are the winners.

Answer 2

man, the spirit of the olympics is that everyone is a winner.

Answer 3

no country wins only teams and single people win. the only time a country wins is if its a team game such as the swimming and track relay teams, or gymnastics teams.

Answer 4

The world is the winner.

If it were a competition with an overall “Winner” there would be a scoring mechanism in place similar to team competition at track meets.  The top individual placement would have a weighted point associated with it to fairly gauge the strength of the team.

1st Gold: 10 points

2nd Silver   7 points

3rd Bronze  5 points

4th   3 points

5th   2 points

Finalist finisher 1 point

Playing with the numbers this would make the “Overall “ competition much closer than just looking at the Gold or Total medal counts.  Keep in mind that the 1-point for finishing is important for the spirit of the games.  It is a small reward for those who compete with no hope of winning. Long after the medalist have finished in some of the running and walking races there are people out there that do not quit.

Of course to be fair, some sort of weighting for the size of the country would need to come into play.  China is definitely large school as would be the USA.  In the small school division I would have to say that Jamaica would be in the lead.

Answer 5

Technically, no country wins the Olympics but according to the International Olympic Committee and all sources of media round the world besides the United States, the most number of golds is the "winner", in this case would be China.

I don't know why the United States media says total medals. Maybe it's just because by saying that, they've pretty much guaranteed a "win" in every Olympic ever held.

Answer 6

Whoever has the most gold medals. I know USA is counting it as Total but the official counting way is Gold. China is probably gona win

Answer 7

I don't think anyone really "wins" the olympics. Only the athletes can win medals for the countries.

Answer 8

the country which has the most gold medals is the overall championf of the Olympic Games.  

Answer 9

no country wins the Olympics, only the participators.  

Answer 10

that's what losers and bleeding heart liberals say.

Answer 11

I think the way the USA does it isn't fair

what if China had 100 bronze medal

and USA had 99 gold

it wouldn't be fair

I personally think they all are winners