China: Who's winning the Olympics so far?

Blogspot blogger Johnny Ong looks at Chinese and US media Olympics coverage and poses an interesting question: what does constitute “winning” the Olympics: number of gold medals, or number of medals overall?

60 comments

  • thks for the link john.
    back to kim soong’s comment – if everyone’s no.1 then there’s no point in holding olympics to decide who’s the world best or even holding a world cup for any kind of sports.

    surely those who are participating in the on-going olympians are truly olympians as they have qualified for it on merit as they are their respective nation’s no.1. but when it comes to world stage, sorry mate, there’s only a single slot for no. 1

  • Lila

    People, the International Olympic Council’s system is simple: the winner of most gold medals is the Olympic’s winner. Come on USA, admit your defeat and think about London.

  • TonyP4

    Hi folks, I propose the following score:

    * gold 4, silver 2 and bronze 1.
    * other considerations are too complicated
    – population (China beats India by a margin but loses to Singapore or Mongolia I guess);
    – or average income per person (US has money to buy Speedo but a poor country cannot afford Phelps’s food bill…)

    But relax. Olympic is for nations to understand each other and not for winning metals and money.

  • MuLan

    Britain and USA have already picked the spaniards as a scape goat to bash for 2016. It will be fun to watch what tactics they will use.

  • Tim

    @wei

    Ummm although he shouldn’t have turned it into a political thing – he does have a point. An you shouldn’t say things like “That is why you guys are rather hated by ordinary Chinese” because you don’t represent ordinary chinese nor does he represent all of america.

    People in all countries are individuals. Looking, grouping and summing up “everyone” with a single ideology or belief is the tool governments use to oppress, coerce and control their people.

  • chan

    @Tim,
    “People in all countries are individuals. Looking, grouping and summing up “everyone” with a single ideology or belief is the tool governments use to oppress, coerce and control their people.”
    That’s is a total negative, this could be make use by politicians to gain support and Chaos for changing a Government System.
    We should not judge a Government System by “Name”. See the Merits they have done.
    A common good ideology and objectives which could be share and treasured by All People in a Nation is indeed very neccessary for the growth, progress and harmony of a Nation

  • Andy

    Good words but none of that crap tells me who is winning! Is there some kind of rankings like a gold is worth 3 points cilver 2 and a bronze 1 point? or what? the USA has more medals but china has more gold so over all who is winning. Yes it is an individual gold but the purpose for any game including the olympics is to have a winner. and the winner of the overall is the country who supossedly has the best atheletes. and that is what I want to know if anyone has that answer who is in the lead now over all?

  • MuLan

    The Chinese gymnastic men are SO HOT! Oh and the flame protectors’ second brother to the right is also very HOT!
    China’s GOLDEN boys

    I am going to marry one of those someday. ;-)

  • hector

    The USA are the only country in the world that are using the ‘medal count’ system. As far as every other country is concerned, China are 1st, US 2nd, GB 3rd, Australia 4th.

    To suggest that a bronze carries the wieght of a gold is absurd. Such reasoning would mean that 51 bronze medals is a better haul than 50 golds. And that Phelps would have been equally successful had he got 8 bronzes instead of 8 golds. Claptrap!

    It’s also going to be fairly subjective assigning points – eg, gold=3, silver=2, bronze=1, as suggested above, yet I would suggest that one gold is worth at least three silver, and likewise one silver three bronze – hence gold=9, silver=3, bronze=1.

    It would appear to the rest of the world that the US are bad losers. Accept 2nd place with grace safe in the knowledge that you beat the rest of the world.

  • cserre

    If I have as many pennies as Rockefeller has dollars then who’s the richer?

    Clearly Rockefeller, duh, or are we competing for who plays dumbest?!

    We have 3 medals more than the Chinese in the total medal count, BUT they have 17 – yes, 17 GOLD MEDALS MORE (43 to 26!) THAN US as of 08/19/08! Sorry for the impolite uppercase but the US media and bloggers all seem to be either disingenuous or in denial.

    China is winning the Olympics by a lot and it is not just recently as Chris McCabe states. Own up to it and do better in Chicago. In the meantime show some sportsmanship. As an American and a Caucasian I am embarrassed by the media’s attempts to hide the obvious and by the lack of grace in recognizing China’s wins. As legitimate as it is to celebrate Michael Phelps it is equally appalling that no one points out that they are up 17 gold medals.

    Please, a little honesty! Isn’t that an American value or is all that cherry tree stuff they fill our heads with in school a bunch of bunk?

Join the conversation

Authors, please log in »

Guidelines

  • All comments are reviewed by a moderator. Do not submit your comment more than once or it may be identified as spam.
  • Please treat others with respect. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved.