I started to notice this last week when I wanted to check the medal standings of nations on CNN/SI. I saw something funny: they list the rankings based not on the gold medal achievements, but on total medal, which made the US number one in the rankings. I mean, please tell me: has it been the norm to rank countries' achievements by total medal instead of the number of gold medal in the US? Or is it just this year?
I just checked again a few minutes ago at CNN/SI and yes, they rank it by total medal, making the US number one and China number two. The same with Yahoo!. It's funny because every day I look at my local newspaper here in Indonesia, they rank it by gold medal, making China number one and the US number two. So what's up with this? Who's right in the way to rank countries?
So I scoured around to look how others are ranking the countries. I started with the Official website for the olympics and, lo and behold, it ranks the countries by gold medal standing. I checked also the BBC site and, yes, they too ranks the countries by gold medal. OK so that's the BBC and the official Olympic site, which may be on China's pocket. So I checked Le Monde just for the heck of it. Ranking by gold medal? Check.
Isn't it sad for the American media to rank the countries by total medal, therefore putting themselves on the first? Doesn't it reek of desperation? I mean, why do they do it? Has it been the norm for US media to do it like this, and would do the same even if China got more total medals and not more gold medals? If it is, then perhaps I'm reading too much on this. But if not, then are the US media being sore losers?
It's alright to contest the age of Chinese gymnast if there's reasonable doubt. If there's a reasonable evidence that the Chinese athletes were using doping, then pursue it. But to rank the countries by total medal, especially because that would put themselves on top, contrary to the norms elsewhere is so... so... so... what's a good word for this...
I don't know how to feel as a foreigner. I mean, should I feel sad? Reviled? OK maybe most Americans don't care what we foreigners think. But in case you do, I assure you that there's no good coming out from this. Every time I point out this fact to my friends & families, they feel... disgusted, and some smiled and said "well, that's America!"
PS: here's some other rankings from various countries. If you find other lists from different countries, please let me know in comments. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that there are many other countries using total medal, and there's nothing nefarious about US media's way of ranking.
Here's a Japanese website with rankings... again, ranking by gold medal.
Here's one from Canada. Again, sorted by gold. From the url, it seems that you can sort it by different criteria, but the default is gold.
This is Seattle times... following other US media rankings.
The only anomaly here is Al Jazeera that follows US media's ranking of total medals.