On Counting Medals

For all the touchy feely bits of the Olympics, at the end of the day they are sporting events. That being the case, who wins what is generally worth getting right. So what to make of how we, versus the rest of the world, rank the medal winners? As this post over at the New York Times's Rings blog explains:

A number of people have written in to ask about the way countries are ranked in the medal listings on the Times site and in other news outlets. We use for our medal tables a feed from the Associated Press, which ranks countries according to the total number of medals won. Others, including the International Olympic Committee, arrange their rankings by gold medals won.

Not surprisingly, some folks accuse the American media of favoring the AP method, since it allows the US to top the table, even though we're getting trounced in the gold medal count by China (but we've doubled the tally of third place Australia, at least). It's hard to say, since I'm not sure how long the AP has done it this way, nor how long the IOC has done it their way.

I can see both sides. On the one hand, it is a "medal count," and they hand out more than gold medals at the Olympics. On the other hand, like I said, it's a sport and it's all about winning. Silver and bronze medals are nice, but they're just first and second losers, after all. The team that loses the Super Bowl or MLS Cup Final don't get a trophy, only the winners do.

In the end, of course, it's one of those meaningless bits of sport controversy that provide nice grist for argument but is, in the end, completely trivial. Which is what makes it so fun.