Olympics: America turns the tables

weder

Olympics: America turns the tablesAccording to the US media, gold medals don't count for as much as they used to. Wonder why that might be?It's an odd thing: when the US media report on the Beijing Olympics medal tallies, they show tables with nations ranked by "total medals" won - rather than by gold medals won, which is the more usual way of doing things (since otherwise a bronze counts the same as a gold, which is hardly the case).
And yet - it wasn't always that way in America's media. Compare these two medal tables from USA Today. The first is from the 2004 Athens Olympics. The USA is number one in both golds and total medals - but notice that China beats Russia into second place, despite Russia having many more medals in total than China.

Now fast forward four years and let's look at USA Today's online medal tally from Beijing - and notice that Russia is ranked ahead of Italy despite having won fewer gold medals. Hmm.

What's the reason for this? Anything to do with the likelihood that China is going to spank America's butt in terms of golds won - but that the USA has a chance to top the overall tally? Maybe ... anyway, the way China is going it may even win the overall tally as well, making America a loser however you count it.
Perhaps the US networks should start celebrating bronze medals as the true sign of Olympic achievement? Because there the USA team still has a big lead.

weder

只要想，办法总会有的，$汗$