The Australia/U.S.A Swimming Showdown is Over… Thoughts?

I don't think it really matters in the end.. I'm sure the competition eggs them on to do better and they are all competitive at that level.
I agree about the chinese team.. I would think the north koreans could be a sketchy one too

I miss the days of great sportsmanship. Say it on the scoreboard, not in the newspaper.

In case you missed it, the entire world is teasing the US for being the only country to show themselves on top of the tally board due to total medals, instead of how it’s supposed to be, with the country with most gold medals on top. Have you not seen any of the memes flying around the interwebs?

And yeah, gold kind of is the only one that matters. Ask any athlete competing. I reckon 99% of them would agree.

Haha, yes I've been amused at how some countries (including my own) manipulate the medal table to suit themselves. Traditionally, and officially it’s always been the highest number of gold on top (officially, because that’s how the Olympic Committee display it).
But there are lots of other ways too, each of which puts different countries towards the top.

USA has been changing it to total medals so they are on top (that was while they had fewer golds than China).
Our New Zealand media likes to display it per capita so we come out nearer the top of the table.

Here’s a couple of websites that show a few different ways to display the same medal table.
Medals by different criteria

Alternative medal tally

But even displaying “per capita” can be manipulated further - number of medals for each million people of population, or number of people for each medal (or further manipulated for gold medals instead of total medals).

Manipulating the medal tally to suit different countries could become an Olympic sport! 🤪

To put it another way, the athletes are competing to WIN their event. If one country wins / comes first in ten events, and another country does not win any events, but comes third in eleven events, should they be on top of the country who beat them in 10 out of 11 event?

I know it’s an unlikely scenario, but hopefully you get my point. If you came second or third, you did not win.

ETA: That’s not to say I don’t value silver or bronze. I absolutely do!!

I look at it both ways. Usually total medals first and then number of gold. I figure we celebrate the top three. Why not look it medal count that way as well.

mellyw I thought you might get a good laugh out of this.... I'm watching the Olympic replay this morning, and the two hosts just put this up on the screen:



It was totally tongue-in-cheek, and they had a good laugh about it.     

Really great visual!!
Medals are wonderful, but I think making the team representing their country is a huge goal and treasured experience!!

I was watching the replay earlier, and OMG, it is such a hard sport! So impressive to watch. 

Honestly, I think this whole "beef" with the US is weird.

First, we've always listed medals based on total, not just Gold. I'm 49 and never remember it another way.

Second, since when doesn't Silver and Bronze count? Shall we ask the Australian Women's Rugby Team if that's true? They seemed awful upset to lose the Bronze to the US Women's Team towards the beginning of the games. There have been a ton of Silver and Bronze winners, in a lot of Countries, including the US, who seem thrilled to have won those Medals.

And last, the count of Golds per person isn't a valid count. The US sent around 580 Athletes. Despite the huge difference in population, Australia sent 460 Athletes. That's the calculation that needs to be done (if you're going to compare like that).

Per a Google search (copy/paste):
The goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to a better and more peaceful world by educating young people through sports played in the Olympic spirit. The Olympic spirit is based on mutual understanding, friendship, solidarity, and fair play, and it requires that sports are practiced without discrimination. The goal of Olympism is to use sports to help people develop harmoniously, promote a peaceful society, and preserve human dignity. It also aims to show how sports can help people become better citizens by combining their mind, body, and spirit. Olympism also recognizes that sports are a universal human right and that everyone should be free to practice them.

No where in that do I see "to determine which Country can win the most gold medals".

Until this year I've never heard anyone say "such and such Country won the Olympics". It's such a weird thing to say. I watch all the Countries, not just the US. Some of the best stories are from other Countries in fact. So many Countries have won their first ever Olympic Medal this year - most not Gold. Ask them how they feel about that Medal.

I believe you (and all other Americans) when you say that *you've* only ever seen it displayed as total medals. But that still doesn't make it the "approved" way. I'm 56, and *I've* only ever seen it based on gold medal wins. As some of us have previously stated, the IOC lists countries in order of gold medals, not total medals. 

I looked at several different sites, and some (in fact most that I looked at) US sites also do it the correct way with number of gold medals, such as CBS, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Sportsgrid and Olympic.ca, whereas NBC, USA Today and ESPN do it the other way, with total medals. So it's surprising that some people have never seen it listed the correct way when multiple US sites show correct way. 

Currently on the official www.olympic.com website, the tally shows the following:

1. USA G 30, S 38, B 35, Total 103
2. China G 29, S 25, B 19, Total 73
3. Australia G 18, S 14, B 13, Total 45
4. France G 14, S 19, B 21, Total 54

So even though France has more medals than Australia, Australia is ahead of them on the tally board because they have more gold. 

And then when you get a bit further down the list, Great Britain, Korea, and Japan all have 13 gold medal. Great Britain is 5th because they have more silver than the other two, then Korea is 6th because they have more silver than Japan, even though Japan has more medals in total than Korea.

I apologise if it seems like I'm being stroppy or pedantic (and most likely annoying ha!) or whatever. This did all start as a bit of fun. I love seeing every country win medals of any colour. And you are so right when you say that some of the best stories are from other countries, especially the really small countries that don't win many medals. 

Except, the official site also sorts in 4 different categories.  Again, I think "right" is in the eye of the beholder on this one.

I've seen comments from people in other Countries (notably Canada) who say they see the Table like US does.  Maybe it's a regional thing.  I don't know.  I googled and did find a Table from The Tokyo games from the CBC site that shows the US on top of the Table even though China had more Golds at that time (US had more overall medals).  *shrug*

I personally don't care how people look at Medal counts.  

I mostly just think the commentary surrounding it at this Olympics (in the media and Tik Tok) has been weird.  The amount of people saying only Golds matter has been amazing to me.  There are a lot of people who have won a Silver or Bronze that would disagree with that.  And I think perpetuating the belief that only a Gold counts is harmful.

Case in point, I was catching up on the action from today (8/8/24) - the last Track race I watched was the Women's 400M Hurdles.  It was very obvious it was going to come down to Femke Bol of the Netherlands or Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone from the US.   Sydney won hands done, there was no touching her - in fact she beat her own standing World Record.  Now, Anna Cockrell of the US came in second, ahead of Femke Bol of the Netherlands who took Bronze.   Apparently this was quite a shock to her, and she was literally crying while being hugged by her parents. Because she won the Bronze medal.  Right now, in the current time, she is third best in the World ... and she was crying (not tears of joy).   I understand that a lot of these Athletes work hard for Gold.  I just find it very sad that to some of them, anything less than Gold, isn't worth being happy for.  It's sad to watch the heart break when they medaled, when there are people who came in 4th, 5th, 6th etc that would have been thrilled with that Bronze medal.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.  I think the whole argument is quite silly honestly and to each their own.