China wins, but who's counting?
The London Times notes (read it by clicking here) what a lot of us realized already: There's something screwy about the way the Associated Press, and thus most U.S. newspapers -- including this Web site's newspaper -- have been showing the Olympic medal standings.
In this traditional American way of listing it, the United States finished No. 1 with 110 medals, ahead of China's 100. The way the rest of the world looks at it, China finished No. 1 because of its 51 gold medals, compared to the United States' 36. I think any child would agree that the country with that many more gold medals had the best time at the Olympics.
To demonstrate the problem with the "total medals" method, look at the silliness farther down the table. On total medals, sprinter-rich Jamaica (6 gold, 3 silver, 2 bronze = 11 total medals) ranks below Kazakhstan (2-4-7 = 13). And the Czech Republic (3-3-0 = 6) is no better than Armenia (0-0-6 = 6).
If you take the logical way out and assign three points for a gold, two for a silver, one for a bronze, China wins with 223 points to the United States' 220.
About this blog
Kevin Modesti watches sports from a new angle since his promotion from sports columnist to sports editor for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. In his new blog, Modesti not only comments on the big sports stories of the moment-- he talks about what makes them big. Think of it as a conversation with readers about how these stories should be covered.
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