Why would Yahoo USA present different medal standings than other Yahoo sites worldwide?

Question

Yahoo USA shows US on top with 36 golds and 110 total medals and then China with 51 golds and 100 total medals.

All these other Yahoo sites show China first and USA second: Korea, Mexico, Taiwan, Germany, Spain, Brazil, UK, Italy, Argentina, Australia and France.

Why are they being misleading and confusing?

Answer 1

well before lots of us media showed medal counts as total medals. however, i have found that some us media used to show by gold medal count and now show as total medal count.  

Answer 2

they wanna distort the medal count so it looks like usa is in first.

SHAME ON THEM!!! =((

Answer 3

Yahoo! Canada uses the Canadian Press standings. Using this you can put China or the United States first depending on which system, or country you like better. Isn't that the perfect way to do it?

Answer 4

This is typical, they  can't  admit that some other country is better.

Answer 5

The Official Olympic website, and the majority of other websites for that matter have China in first place on the medal table.....I'll go with that.

It's pretty typical of them to do something like this, and I wasn't that surprised when I first found out either. Sour grapes and all. I guess the yanks can't take coming second...

Answer 6

Because its just another cheap white american website...

James and AndiGravity are both Americans talking through their white arsse and thinks the rest of the world is stupid.

Answer 7

Because this time the USA didn't finish at the top of the medal standings, so they had to find a way to put themselves at the top.

Answer 8

I'm sorry, are you really misled and confused by the total medal counts from the various countries?  Did they not honestly state the medal count on all the websites?  Were the medals miscounted on Yahoo's main site compared to their various country specific sites around the world?

The total medal standings were stated on the United States website because a) it's a United States website, so they're going to try and put a friendly and positive spin on things to make their customer base feel more excited and upbeat about their content, and b) because the United States DOES care more about total medal standings than the rest of the world.

All these people running around saying "the US has only ever cared about gold until someone came along who could beat them, and NOW they care about total medals because they're sore losers" haven't been paying attention.

There is no official winner of the Olympics.  It doesn't matter who won the most gold medals, or the most total medals.  The only winners are the athletes in each event, and the people of the United States tend to consider anyone who medals in the Olympics a winner.

We're just as quick to cheer for a silver or bronze medal as we are for a gold medal.  That isn't true of other countries.  Did you watch the Chinese athletes?  It couldn't have been plainer from the looks on their faces there were exactly two outcomes of the competition for them:  a gold medal or failure, and that's exactly how their country decided they "won".

Am I the only person who remembers the absolute fit the American people threw eight years ago when Nike decided to run an ad saying second place was the first loser?  Why?  Because Nike was suggesting the silver and bronze medalists were losers.

So in that regard yes, the United States has ALWAYS cared about its total medal count because we want to know which silver and bronze medalists we can be proud of, too.

Beyond that, I don't think anyone who followed the Olympics in the United States thinks the Americans won more gold medals than the Chinese.  You may not like how the facts were spun, exactly, but they weren't distorted in their presentation, which is more than you can say for other countries, including China.

The Olympics weren't even over when the Chinese started proclaiming they had won.  The instant they had enough gold medals in the bag that no one else could get more than them, the Chinese got on every television and radio station they could and shouted as loud as they could that they were better than everyone else on the planet.

Why THAT didn't p**s people off and make them say "wow, what a bunch of egotistical jerks" I'll never know, but apparently you're only considered a jerk for pointing out how your country's doing well if you live in the United States.  It's still okay for everyone else on the planet to find reasons to be proud of their country and point them out, even though there isn't a country on Earth that's not knee deep in its own hypocritical bull$#!+.

Until Matthew Mitcham came along, the Chinese were even bragging they were going to do exactly what America did by winning an eight gold medal sweep in a single sport.  Of course, they had to use a well over a dozen people to do what one single athlete did, but leave that out of the equation!  The scope of the feats are absolutely the same!  If you can round up dozens of people who can cumulatively accomplish what one single person does, you're even!

Darn that Australian for futzing up China's ability to insist it shared the record with Michael Phelps for the most gold medals won in a single sport.

The United States isn't the only place where the outcomes of the game were spun to make the locals feel better about how the home team was doing.

Addendum:

I said the American people are just as quick to cheer a silver or gold medal.  I didn't say the coaches or athletes were just as happy to settle for one.  In order to get to the level of performance required to be in the Olympics, the athletes have to be completely driven, and have to have coaches that constantly drive them.  It's the coach's JOB to tell their athlete how to improve if they don't take first place, not just cheer as a spectator would.

I'm sorry if the subtle differences between those two situations escapes you.

Answer 9

Yahoo is not being misleading or confusing just a different method of calculating the overall country Olympic leader. Since the IOC doesn't recognize national medal standings 3 different methods are used. #1 GOLD LEADER #2 TOTAL MEDAL SYSTEM (GOLD+SILVER+BRONZE) and lastly #3 MEDAL POINT SYSTEM

Gold medal leader that's used as the international method of calculating which country comes up on top and only factors Silver and Bronze medals as a tie breaker.

American method which adds up the total number of Gold, Silver and Bronze medals to determine the country leader. The country that wins the most medals wins.

Lastly my favorite method is the Medal point System as it rewards both overall excellence and consistency. Gold= 3pts Silver= 2pts and Bronze=1pt. Under this method China is #1 with 223 points and USA comes in 2nd with 220 points.

Worth noting that team medals are only counted as 1 medal and not all the individual members.  

Answer 10

to boost their dented egos....

probably soon the Americans will arrive and tell you they have always done it this way, they may even throw around the usual accusations of "whiny jealous foreigners" so often seen on this board whenever anyone questions their counting method...

guess that just means they have a long history of making themselves look better than they really are