60 comments

• xao ming

  pathetic loosers, it is clear that China is the winner.

  20 August 2008, 16:48 pm

  Reply to this  
• John

  I agree with hector using the 9-3-1 system to rank the medals. But no matter how you rank it, as long as there is a decent margin between points for gold and silver, China will be leading since they are beating the runner up in gold (aka US) by 19 medals as of 8/20/08.

  But honestly speaking, why do we even care about the total medal counts, all athletics in this world go to the Olympics to win gold, no one goes to the Olympics to win silver or bronze. Not to say that they are not important.

  So basically I side with IOC and the rest of the world, number of gold is much more important then total medal count. If not Phelps record of 8 gold is worth as much as someone winning 8 bronze.

  So… although I don’t really like Xao Mings wording, he is right.

  China is the WINNER of the 2008 Olympics!!!

  20 August 2008, 20:37 pm

  Reply to this  
• MuLan

  Well, let’s be fair, and this is a very interesting situation.

  So to me both are winners depending on which part of the pie you are cutting it. If you are cutting for more medals, then USA is the winner, but if you are cutting for more GOLD medals, then CHINA is the winner. So far it’s an interesting combination.

  What does this tell me? It tells me that USA and CHINA will have to work as a team whether they like it or not.

  I have read some written articles predicting that in the future, there will be multiple super powers verses what we have now – One super power. Inevitably, CHINA is propelling toward that direction whether the world likes it or not. Let me repeat democracy is happening one day at a time in CHINA, and she’s got 1.5 billion children supporting her from mainland and around the globe. It’s a lot of burden to carry as one sole super power such as policing other nations. So it would be nice if CHINA and USA and maybe another nation(s) to join the rank to become multiple super powers. Now that will be Utopia for our future generations!

  20 August 2008, 20:45 pm

  Reply to this  
• chan

  Those who have particpated and contributed to the Olypmic Games for the True Olympic Spirit, are Winners

  21 August 2008, 4:25 am

  Reply to this  
• james

  @John
  I agree with you that no athlete attends the Olympics to win silver or bronze.
  But the ranking of which country is number one is still an extremely interesting discussion.
  The angle of discussion is paramount. We are simply looking at the same numbers displayed differently. (Gold medals or total medals)

  What if No. of medals (or gold medals) was compared to inhabitants?
  Then I could argue that Jamaica is leading the medal tally.

  I found this interesting widget that displays medals (and total medals) compared to inhabitants.
  Check it out and see a different view of the medal tally:

  http://www.clearspring.com/widgets/48abc6bc903b61d0

  Thanks for a great discussion.
  I’ll be following the debate

  James

  21 August 2008, 11:55 am

  Reply to this  
• hector

  http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/athens/medals.aspx

  Check that out! USA today, final medal table for Athens 2004. Notice how China were second, and Russia third, yet Russia had more medals overall.

  http://content.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/beijing/medals.aspx

  And by contrast, how the USA Today people are reporting the medal table for the current Olympics.

  21 August 2008, 12:05 pm

  Reply to this  
• KO

  The winner has always been the country with the highest gold medal count. There’s no point in discussing or debating other methods of finding a winner. Why change the way its been done all these years?
  Winner = country with the most gold medals.

  ATM, China is leading by a huge margin, probably the biggest margin in the more recent Olympic games (A difference of 19 gold medals between China and US.)

  So, unless US suddenly gets a ton of gold medals, China will probably win the Olympics.

  21 August 2008, 13:54 pm

  Reply to this  
• Ben

  Counting and/or ranking medals? Would it be more fair if it’s based on national population, i.e.., # of xxx medals per million of people?

  21 August 2008, 14:32 pm

  Reply to this  
• bushjr

  it depends on the point of view, if you are american the US is the winner but for the rest of the world its china

  21 August 2008, 14:55 pm

  Reply to this  
• John

  @Mulan
  As history has shown us, we cannot have more than one superpower at one time, the Cold wars. Russia and USA were both superpowers and at the time there were many conflict of interests in world affairs. In the end, Russia lost its superpower standings along with its economy.

  If we have China and USA or more superpowers at one time, I fore see another Cold war, ending with either one or more of those countries collapsing.

  @James
  You can’t really use a ranking style where you rank according to number of medals per population. If you do this then the larger countries (China, USA, Russia, India, etc) will have a humongous disadvantage. China alone has 1.3 billion people, while Jamaica (the listed winner) has less then 3 million. Now you tell me, can you really compare it this way.

  @Hector
  From my years living and growing up in America, I can say that all American newspapers will rank in favor of USA winning, no matter what the rest of the says, hence your example of usatodays ranking during Athens and now Beijing.

  21 August 2008, 15:09 pm

  Reply to this