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发帖数: 370 | 4 Sorry, America: China's leading the real Olympic medal count
Dan Wetzel
TOKYO — China is kicking the United States' tail (at least for now) in
these Olympics, although you wouldn’t know it if you just scanned the medal
tables in the American media.
In an unexplained yet (apparently) nationally accepted counting method,
Americans tally the standings not by what country wins the most golds, but
what country wins the most total medals.
NBC. New York Times. Washington Post. Alas, even Yahoo Sports.
This is, to be clear, ridiculous.
That means China’s current tally of 32 golds, 21 silvers and 16 bronzes (69
total) is somehow not as good as the United States’ 25 golds, 29 silvers
and 21 bronzes (75 total). Try telling China’s seven extra gold medalists
that their victories didn't matter.
What in the name of participation trophies is going on here?
The rest of the world favors gold over everything. That’s how the
International Olympic Committee tallies it. Same with the medal standing on
the Toyko 2020 website. It’s good enough for media companies all over the
world, just not in the U.S. apparently.
Everyone else has this right since, quite literally, gold is better than the
others. It’s a simple concept.
Gold. Silver. Bronze.
The gold medalist gets the highest spot on the podium. The flag of the
country that the gold medalist represents is raised higher than the others.
They play the anthem of the gold medalist, not the others.
There is no subtlety here. There is no room for interpretation. At no point
was it ever suggested that the three spots are equals. If they were, then
they’d just hand out three gold medals.
Instead, back at the 1904 Games — held in St. Louis, no less — they came
up with the concept of three colored medals. Everyone loved it. Prior to
that the winner received a silver medal and an olive branch while the runner
-ups each got a bronze or copper medal and a laurel branch.
The U.S. though, like its opposition to the metric system, decides to go it
alone and, hey, what a coincidence, it just happens to make it look like the
Americans are having the most success at the Olympics, when we most
certainly are not.
This wasn’t some planned thing. The system was in place before China began
capturing more golds here. It isn’t a coordinated way to spare America’s
fragile ego and hide the fact that it isn’t dominating the Games.
It just looks that way.
Consider this: If the United States was leading the standings according to
every single entity — official or neutral — in the entire world, but the
Chinese media used a different system that put them on top … well, what
would you think?
Besides, the total medal count does tend to favor the United States, which
often has the largest delegation at the Olympics and, thus, the most chances
to win medals (613 to China’s 431).
Right now though, it’s just embarrassing. There is no shame in not winning
as many golds as China. Really, who cares? A nation's worth is not defined
by the strength of its canoe slalom team. Besides, with track and field,
basketball and boxing still going, we can still surpass the Chinese by any
metric.
But making it look like we are reworking the numbers — even if it isn’t
orchestrated — is humiliating.
The simple solution is to weigh the medals for the sake of the standings.
Say three points for gold, two for silver and one for bronze. Or whatever
value needs to be assigned. Then it wouldn’t be all about the gold, but it
also wouldn’t pretend gold was bronze.
No one has ever tried to claim their company offers customers the “silver-
standard.” A luxury experience is ever hyped as “bronze-plated.” The
current price of an ounce of gold? $1,813. Silver? Try $818. Bronze is going
for $2.55 for an entire pound.
If anyone wants to say they are all equal, I’m willing to trade pounds of
bronze for pounds of gold any time you want.
Some of the American athletes have brought up frustration that sometimes “
winning silver” is equated to “losing gold.”
“Excuse my French, but the fact we’re not celebrating silver and bronze is
bulls—,” swimmer Lily King said. “What is that about?
“You get to bring a medal home for your country,” King continued. “Just
because we compete for the United States and maybe we have extremely high
standards for this sort of thing, that doesn’t excuse the fact that we
haven’t been celebrating silver and bronze as much as gold.”
Hey, go ahead and celebrate and be proud of the accomplishment. Very few of
us get to be in the top three in the world at anything.
That doesn’t mean bronze is the new gold. Or that — face it — China
shouldn't be on top of the medal chart. |
