Why do we rank medal winning nations in order of gold rather then total medals like the US.?

Question

The current ranking method would have OZ last if we won all silver and bronze medals

Answer 1

Grouping all of the medals together makes the most sense and is the most accurate. If the silver and bronze were not important to the game, we would only have one type of medal-gold. But we clearly do not. Ignoring the accomplishments of silver and bronze is completely irrational and goes against what the Olympics stands for.

Answer 2

Because that's fair. Just say Ireland won 50 gold medals.. but New Zealand won 51 bronze medals. Which team do you think should be ranked highest?

The U.S. only did it on that news show because then it showed them as number 1.

Answer 3

because the other medals don't matter much.

Answer 4

because the yanks only want to know when they are winning, ever notice that their media reports the tally different from the rest of the world ??  

Answer 5

Because ranking on total medals is very inaccurate.  Gold is the most important of the medals and for Silver and Bronze to be treated equally and all added together to come up with a total is ridiculous.

The U.S.A. media use that formula because they know the U.S. will most likely win the most medals, but not necessarily the most Gold medals.

Answer 6

the CORRECT answer is that the OFFICIAL medal table as per the  IOC ranks nations in this format. as usual the arrogant americans are trying to make themselves look better even though china is giving them a flogging

Answer 7

To make it a competition with an overall team “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 measure the standing of the team.

1st Gold: 10 points

2nd Silver 7 points

3rd Bronze 5 points

4th (no medal) 3 points

5th (no medal) 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.

To be fair there would also have to be some sort of weighting or handicap for the size of the country. 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 8

Because "Go for the Gold," that's why. Ask any true Olympian and they'll tell you it's better to take risks and try for the gold than to avoid risks to get the bronze.

I've been seeing a lot of "go for the bronze" in this Olympics and it's shameful. The US via nbc is giving absurd amounts of coverage to people who win bronze in glamour sports like gymnastics, and practically ignoring gold winners in "lesser" sports. Like 6 hours of fawning coverage of the US men's "amazing" bronze in team all-around gymnastics. And about 5 minutes of Kristin Armstrong's cycling gold.

The us team got the bronze partly because of other teams, like Germany taking risks, going for the gold, ending up making mistakes in challenging routines and falling to 4th. Taking the bronze in a scenario like that is not really anything to be proud of.

Notice how the home-field advantage for the Chinese is giving them a whole lot of gold medals, but they're not getting any big boost in silver and bronze. They're not going for the bronze.