Why in US always count the total of medals while other country count from the most gold,silver,bronze?

Question

example : usa got 16 gold, 16 silver 22 bronze. china 27 gold, 13 silver 7 bronze, australia 7 gold, 8 silver 10 bronze. in usa said usa # 1 but other country said # 2 because usa got less gold than china. gold medal is more worth it than silver. if count as same than why have number 1, 2 and 3 at every competition ? if have number 1, 2 ,3 in competition it means gold, silver and bronze worth different, am i right ?

Answer 1

Because U.S.A is unique!

Answer 2

The only reason China says they're in #1 because they have more golds is because that's the only way they can. No worries, when it's all over, the U.S. will have more gold, silver, and bronze than everyone.

Answer 3

Because that's the way the American count it.

Answer 4

US counts every little effort from their athletics (since they know they have worked their butts off, and getting a bronze medal is not an easy task either) while other countries just care about gold ex China, Russia, Australia etc.

Answer 5

We do it mainly because we see any metal as an amazing accomplishment. Even though gold is better than the others we don't need to count by the best metals we got. Just having received a metal at all is an accomplishment that most people don't even get to see.

Answer 6

The traditional way to rank countries is by gold metals.  However, since the US is being slaughtered by China this year, television networks have decided to rank by total metals instead, to protect US viewers' pride.