What is the official Olympic medal standings based on? Gold or Total?

Question

I was reading another question about medal counts, and was wondering what the OFFICIAL Olympic medal standings are based on. Most say it's based on number of medals, and other say it's based on total number of medals.

Being from Canada neither helps us look any better :D But I always thought that it would be based on number of medals with the number of higher medals being the tie breaker, or that they would have a skewed point system for medals (3 points for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze).

So I'm curious: Does anyone know what the International Olympic Committee's stance is on this? What is the official medal ranking system? Sources of official scripts would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The IOC uses the "By Gold First" method and always has.

Answer 2

Number of gold medals to their licence, if the same number of silver medals on the number of licences, etc.

Answer 3

All the while, based on number of gold medals, that is, the number of world champions.

But since USA has been second on the gold medals ranking, USA tries to make themselves look better by "making number of medals count".  USA is trying to make their loss seem like a victory.

Does it mean that if country A gets 1 gold medal, and country B gets 1 bronze medal, both are the same?  Ask Phelps whether if his 8 golds were to be changed to 8 bronze, will he accept the change?  If his were to be 8 bronze, he will not catch the attention of the media, agree?