They count for something but not as much as a gold imo.
Currently China trail USA by 9 medals in total but have 17 more gold medals. I think China have more of a claim of "winning" the games on that basis (as it stands).
A points system would be fairest. If you agree Gold > Silver > Bronze and award points on a 3,2,1 basis then USA would only be 4 points behind China on current standings. But perhaps the points for each medal should be higher to reflect that a gold medal far outweighs the loser medals.
Or they could try the Aussie way:
Here's some other ideas (not sure how up-to-date it is but you get the idea(S)) :Quote:
. . . a medal tally ranked by the total number of medals won per head of capita. As Australia has a small population, compared to most countries, of about 20 million but has also won a lot of medals, this put them firmly in number one. Think of our joy in New Zealand when that same system saw New Zealand in second, due to our tiny population of only 4 million.
POINTS SCORED (THREE FOR GOLD, TWO FOR SILVER, ONE FOR BRONZE)
RANK COUNTRY TOTAL
1 China 212
2 United States 190
3 Russia 101
4 Great Britain 89
5 Australia 77
6 Germany 67
=7 France 56
=7 South Korea 56
9 Japan 48
10 Italy 45
POPULATION PER MEDAL
RANK COUNTRY TOTAL
1 Bahamas 307,451
2 Jamaica 311,592
3 Slovenia 401,542
4 New Zealand 463,717
5 Australia 502,459
6 Armenia 593,717
7 Belarus 645,717
8 Estonia 653,803
9 Norway 663,499
10 Lithuania 713,041
GDP - BILLION DOLLARS PER MEDAL
RANK COUNTRY TOTAL
1 North Korea 0.36
2 Jamaica 0.53
3 Zimbabwe 0.85
4 Armenia 1.28
5 Georgia 1.29
6 Tajikistan 1.40
7 Krygzstan 1.41
8 Mongolia 1.57
9 Togo 2.21
10 Belarus 2.46
NUMBER OF ATHLETES AT GAMES PER MEDAL WON
RANK COUNTRY TOTAL
1 Uzbekistan 2
2 Jamaica 2.95
3 Panama 3
3 Togo 3
5 Zimbabwe 3.25
6 Afghanistan 4
7 Indonesia 4.8
8 Georgia 5.83
9 US 5.95
10 Tajikistan 6.5
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7576446.stm