US Medals table

[MCHeshPants420]

What a load of crap , who gets the most medals wins . Totals count where I come from . Nice to see great performances from the lesser nations , my country Canada included .

I agree. Silver and bronze have to count for something.

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:

. . . 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.

Here's some other ideas (not sure how up-to-date it is but you get the idea(S)) :

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

[peat moss]

I found an interesting take on the whole medal thing here :



" Host China will finish as the top gold-medal winner for the first time in Olympic history, becoming the only nation other than the U.S. and Soviet Union to win the most titles at a Summer Games since 1948.

With a lead over the U.S. of 49 golds to 34 and only 12 events left, the Chinese team can't be caught. Gold medals in canoeing and table tennis lifted China to the top of the tally today, the second-to-last day of the Beijing Games. "





http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...hbl8M&refer=us