Who was the real winner in the medal standings/count?

Question

China with 51 golds and 100 overall medals?

USA with 36 golds and 110 overall medals ?

Bear in mind that the International Olympic Committee accounts for GOLD COUNT, not overall.

By the international standard, seems like China was the winner.

Answer 1

USA was

Answer 2

CHINA

Answer 3

CHINA WAS THE WINNER.

Answer 4

China, because the IOC does the leader board by GOld MEdal tally, but USA had the most medals over all!

Answer 5

This is just an opinion, I feel USA won. The reason why I say this is because we didn't cheat and use underage athletes to get a gold medal. If any athletic team in the US were to cheat they would be disqualified. I feel the same for all countries. Now, a lot of people might think differently. That's their opinion and I am entitled to mine.  

Answer 6

hands down USA, for several reaason, but the ones to come to mind are total medal count was 10% higher than nearest competitor, we are a small country in population compared to China, India, Pakistan, Russia....we didn't cheat by using underaged gymnasts, and we didn't buyoff any judges.  As I said 2 weeks ago, Americans EARN their medals, fair n square.  

Answer 7

It's the last man standing on the top podium.  So for 2008, it was Kenya, who had the winner in the men's marathon.

Seriously, if you watch the closing ceremony with all the athletes having fun on the floor, it was like a graduation.  Everyone is s winner.

Answer 8

This question has been asked 705 times. The games are over - get over it!

People say China because they don't like the USA.

Answer 9

The 40-year old Romanian mom who won the marathon is as much an accomplishment as any other in the Olympics.  The medal count by country is meaningless.  

Answer 10

I think the real winners were the individual athletes, e.g., Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Kai Zou. Just qualifying is a big individual accomplishment, but winning is awesome!

To compare country-by-country performance, I look at medals per capita. It tends to be easier for a country to win a lot of medals if they are the richest or most populous, but some smaller and poorer countries like the Bahamas, Jamaica, Norway, and Australia do quite well per capita.

Looked at per capita, the US beat China by a big margin, but both countries are in the bottom half of the ranking.

The International Olympic Committee DOESN'T actually rank countries per se. They list medal tallies for information purposes, and they "sort" the list by gold / silver / bronze, but they are not saying that any country "did better" than another.

Looking at the official results from 2000 in Sydney, the web page states explicitly "The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not recognise global ranking per country; the medal tables are displayed for information only. [...] The medal tables by country are based on the number of medals won, with gold medals taking priority over silver and bronze. A team victory counts as one medal."

Answer 11

The olympics has no winner. Everyone competes and the winner of each event gets a medal, yes but they don't declare a "winner of the olympics". I would say that China was the top competetor. They had the most Golds.

Answer 12

Your are right. By international standards, China won. By US standards, the Americans won. Americans don't need the approval of the International community, just like they don't need any approval to wage an illegal war in Iraq.

Answer 13

usa