How is the medal tally made? By the number of gold medals or the total number of medals?

Question

If by the number of gold medals, China is the top 1 by far. If by the total number, USA will be the first.

Answer 1

Golds!!!

Answer 2

It's made however you want. There is no official national winner of the Olympics. Medal counts are just for bragging rights. So, if you have the most gold, you make that claim and if you don't have most gold but most overall you make that claim.

But, who really cares how many second and third place finishes anyone has?

Answer 3

The International Olympic Movement (who make the rules for the Olympics) has always (since Athens 1896) counted by Gold and contrary to what has been reported in the US media this is the FIRST time the USA has tried to do it by total medals.

Every other Olympics the US has done it the same way as the rest of the world, by Gold Medal.

For proof, go to the OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC MOVEMENT at:

http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/index_uk... and you will see EVERY Summer and Winter Olympic games from Athens in 1896 until today.

Select an individual Olympics and you will see toward the bottom right, "Medals By Country"

From Day One it has been done BY GOLD MEDALS NOT TOTAL MEDALS.

Answer 4

Here in the U.S. we go by TOTAL Medals, and ties are broken by GOLD Medals. This theory of someone has more medals because they have more gold is stupid. Although we talk about Medal COUNT here, so you have to go by who has the most TOTAL first. To those who whine about how we do it heck ESPN lists China as first when they have as many medals, because they have more Gold.

Answer 5

There are many posts about how medals count. Why not we do it as per Alphabetically Order? America or USA will always on top of China in either descending/ascending.  

Answer 6

It depends on which tally board you're speaking about. Usually it's the gold medal count that most look at. However, since the US has been leading the overall count through most of the games the total count has been paid more attention.

Who remembers the silver and bronze medalists after the games have come and gone. Olympic champions are remembered.

i.e. who's going to remember Milorad Cavic (silver medalist) versus Michael Phelps (gold medalist)

Hope this helps.

Enjoy!

Answer 7

gold medals. other medals will only be taken into account when two or more countries have the same gold medals

Answer 8

They should have a clickable list so you can see the tally any way you like.  That would cut down on this question being asked every five minutes.  

Answer 9

Whichever you prefer. In England, most of the news reports focus on the Golds, whereas in USA they tend to go for total quantity.

Answer 10

us: total

all other countries: gold

Answer 11

By Golds!

They do tally both but every country wants to be the country with the most Golds that what thye see as most important and thats what in the news is all bout whos got the most golds!

Answer 12

officially the IOC ranks it by Gold ... why should a team with 10 bronze, come higher than a team with 9 Gold

but different countries focus on the way that makes them look higher in the table

Answer 13

gold medals

Answer 14

the international olympic committe and the world uses Golds. The US uses total.

Answer 15

when you look at the one on cbc.ca/olympics its sorted by gold

but if you click on all sports at the top it'll show total medals.