sycasey said:

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Vandalus said:

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DoubtfulBear said:

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I see that we have adopted the total medal ranking to look better rather than the more logical gold medal ranking

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So by that logic, you would argue that China had a better Olympic showing than the United States, correct? We had 122 total medals to their 90 overall, but they edged us by one gold after all.

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Actually the US and China tied for the most golds.

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I find this logic, not yours, but in general, to be a bit dubious. Dozens more American athletes won gold medals. The USWNT winning gold in futbol is one medal? 16? or whatever players went 6(?)-0 for 1 gold medal, while doing two pommelhorse routines in 5 minutes gets that same gold in our tally. It doesn't make sense.

ducktilldeath said:

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sycasey said:

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Vandalus said:

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DoubtfulBear said:

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I see that we have adopted the total medal ranking to look better rather than the more logical gold medal ranking

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So by that logic, you would argue that China had a better Olympic showing than the United States, correct? We had 122 total medals to their 90 overall, but they edged us by one gold after all.

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Actually the US and China tied for the most golds.

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I find this logic, not yours, but in general, to be a bit dubious. Dozens more American athletes won gold medals. The USWNT winning gold in futbol is one medal? 16? or whatever players went 6(?)-0 for 1 gold medal, while doing two pommelhorse routines in 5 minutes gets that same gold in our tally. It doesn't make sense.

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I would say that winning a gold in a team sport should count the same as winning a gold in an individual sport. Basically, the 100 meter dash should count as (1) gold and be the same as the 4x100 meter relay which would also count as (1) gold.

ducktilldeath said:

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sycasey said:

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Vandalus said:

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DoubtfulBear said:

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I see that we have adopted the total medal ranking to look better rather than the more logical gold medal ranking

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So by that logic, you would argue that China had a better Olympic showing than the United States, correct? We had 122 total medals to their 90 overall, but they edged us by one gold after all.

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Actually the US and China tied for the most golds.

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I find this logic, not yours, but in general, to be a bit dubious. Dozens more American athletes won gold medals. The USWNT winning gold in futbol is one medal? 16? or whatever players went 6(?)-0 for 1 gold medal, while doing two pommelhorse routines in 5 minutes gets that same gold in our tally. It doesn't make sense.

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I said something similar above. You could do a tally of how many individual athletes win a medal, so for a team you would count each team member towards the total.

They literally give out that many medals, so it's a perfectly logical idea..

BearBoarBlarney said:

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For 2 universities desperately seeking a conference home, Cal and Stanford acquitted themselves well in Paris.

https://fansided.com/posts/olympic-medal-tracker-colleges-with-the-most-2024-olympic-medalists-01j3xgy7pn25

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Is it just me or would that list of schools be a really great athletic conference?

sycasey said:

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calfanz said:

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DoubtfulBear said:

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golden sloth said:

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DoubtfulBear said:

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I see that we have adopted the total medal ranking to look better rather than the more logical gold medal ranking

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I dont think the gold medal ranking is inherently more logical.

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#1 in a competition is the undisputed best. Silver and bronze is arbitrary, why not also give credit to #4? Imagine if the loser of the national championship game also gets a trophy for being second best

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The entire exercise is silly. A swimmer can win 5+ medals, where as the entire Basketball Teams gets one gold

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This, by the way, is how China runs up its gold medal count. They specifically identify events where:

1. One great athlete can win multiple medals.
2. The Americans are not all that competitive.

And they drive their entire athletic program towards those sports. That's why they are so good at diving and table tennis and don't care about basketball or soccer. For the latter, you need multiple great athletes to win one medal. In a more free country like the US, a lot of it is down to which sports people actually like to play. Sure the US Olympic Committee can help facilitate and direct athletes to given sports, but there isn't the same kind of top-down control the CCP has.

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For those old enough to remember this is exactly what East Germany did in the bad old days. They put all their resources (i.e. rampant doping) into individuals who could win multiple medals. They didn't care about developing 15 players for basketball when they could develop (dope up) 15 athletes for swimming or track.

If there were 10 events and a team won silver and bronze in all 10, but no golds and another team won 1 gold, but no other medals. Which team do you think had the better games? If gold medal ranking was more logical, then it would be the team with the single medal in one event. Not sure how that's more logical.

Conversely, if a team won the gold in all 10 events and another team won the silver and bronze in all 10 events, which team had the better games? If total medal ranking was more loical, then it wouldn't be the team that won every event. Not sure how that's more logical.

Both swimming and track have team national championships and those championships are not determined by which team won the most races; they have a score distirbution in which first place is worth the most points, second the second most, and so on. With the Olympis only awarding 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, one would think 1st should be worth more than 2nd and 3rd combined.

But it gets even more complicated. As many have pointed out, the Olympics hands out as many medals for diving as they do for basketball, volleyball, water polo, and futball combined. Is diving really worth 4 times more than any of those other sports? Or do you do a NACDA Directors' Cup ranking where you equalize across all fields?

There really isn't a way to logically weight medal count because there's no "winner" of the Olympics; only winners of individual events. But if you're going to rank the medal count then both total golds and total medals should be used. To what degree makes for fun arguments.