Reply #57: um, yeah [View All]

[fishwax]

Need to feel first down at the old Legion hall? Go to an American-based news media outlet, most of which rank the countries based on the overall medal count, which the United States has been leading. Here, and in many places around the world, China is ahead on the basis of a gold-medal surge that has roughly doubled its total haul from the 2000 Sydney Games with six days remaining.

For those who would like this debate to be formally officiated by a ruling authority, do not count on the International Olympic Committee. “If you read the Olympic charter, we actually see the Games as between athletes, not countries,” Giselle Davies, an I.O.C. spokeswoman, said in an interview Monday.

We’ll pass on the charter and read between the lines. Claiming that it is merely making a concession to the news media, fans and athletes who, as Davies said, “end up wanting to see a tally,” the I.O.C. does compile and present on its Web site a final medal table with a disclaimer at the bottom.

“The I.O.C. does not recognize global ranking per country; the medal tallies are displayed for information only,” it reads.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/sports/olympics/19araton.html?_r=3&ref=sports

This is about the 2008 games, but the point stands. Two of your three links didn't work, but the one that did showed a medal table for the 2010 games, and I assume the other two were similar. Yes, such medal tables exist, and yes the IOC provides such a medal table. My point was that the IOC doesn't have rules to recognize a "winner" in the medal count, because they don't endorse global rankings in that way.