Time to change the Olympic "scoring system"

[augyboston]

First, let me say that I know there are far more important issues than the Olympics and medal counts.

That being said, a diversion from all that ails us may be a good thing from time to time.

In the past few days, I've read several articles stating that only gold medal counts should determine what country "wins" the Olympics. Of course, I believe that all the participating countries and athletes are winners on some level. Still, the allure to determine what country is being more successful seems reasonable to me.

I cannot abide that only gold medals should be the final determination as to what country finishes first in the competition. That means that silver and bronze are completely discounted. To finish second or third at this level of competition certainly should factor into a team's overall performance.

Therefore, I believe the IOC should adopt a point system where each gold medal counts as four points, each silver is worth two points and each bronze is worth one point. The nation with the highest overall point total at the end of competition places first.

This will increase overall interest and will give tangible value to first, second and third place in each competition.

Now, back to politics. tRump and others who in any way participated in the attempted coup all need to go to prison!

[FBaggins]

1. I don't think there's anything to change

Popular reporting likes to look at both total medals and told gold medals, but I don’t think there is any official “which country won the olympics?” metric.

You’re free to score it however you like.

[King of the sheep]

2. The IOC doesn't have or endorse a ranking system for medals

Which leaves us free to use any that we like: gold medals, your scheme, per capita, per GDP or percentage of competitors winning a medal etc.

[malaise]

3. How interesting and arrogant

Many of us have noticed that the US media is counting total medals and not gold medals this year.
Why?
Because China has more gold. The team that WINS gets the gold.
I recommend basic decency and a little humility. This is freaking sport not war.

[Celerity]

4. +1

[malaise]

8. There are more than a few Americans who hate the notion of a draw in global football

They argue that we must have a winner. They even hate the penalty shootout. Now some don't want to give credit to the gold medal winners. We're a planet full of contradictions. Bangs head.

[Celerity]

11. I pay little attention to most Americans about football, lol

even though my team (Chelsea, I grew up around a mile away from Stamford Bridge, and have been to dozens of games) has their best player, Pulisic

he needs to step the hell up this year

are you watching the women's Olympic final now?

[jmowreader]

22. I don't like the penalty shootout either

If the match can’t end in a draw, play more extra time periods until someone wins the game.

[spanone]

6. Amen

[Ron Obvious]

15. The US have always counted that way, though

It's not new for these Olympics. I first noticed it during the 84 LA Olympics and wondered why they counted it differently than the rest of the world does.

[malaise]

16. Thanks for that

I found it odd this year

[sir pball]

18. In the individual events, sure, but we're talking an aggregate score here

The analogy that springs to mind is the Formula One system, for both the World Driver's Championship and the Word Constructor's Championship; racing is one of the few sports that determines the winners by their overall performance over the season rather than any single event - consistency is rewarded, rather than having one good or bad day.

First place earns 25 points, 2nd is 18, then 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 for the remaing top ten. It's not unheard of for the champion to have fewer outright wins than #2, but to have consistently placed in the top 3 rather than dominating a couple of events and absolutely flaming out in others.

To build a deliberately extreme situation, if China had four gold medals and nothing else, and the US had 1 gold, 34 silver, and 19 bronze, would you still say China won the medal race simply because they had more golds?

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. I think it's as much up to the broadcaster in each country

I wasn't aware until now that the IOC itself ran a medals table. I'm pretty sure I've read that some countries do list things by total number of medals (as, I see, the olympics.com site has an option for ranking by).

It's not true to say "silver and bronze are completely discounted" in the most common system; for countries tied on gold, the number of silver they have then counts, and then the bronze.

[malaise]

9. Medal Count

https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/olympic-games/en/results/all-sports/medal-standings.htm

[obamanut2012]

7. Countries don't win the Olympics, athletes do

And this is why I no longer watch the Olympics.

[malaise]

10. Countries live vicariously through their athletes

All of Jamaica is hoping for the 4 X 1 gold today - Independence Day - a public holiday.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

12. I dunno about all that, but that 14 y/o female Chinese platform diver earned those perfect '10's

[bullwinkle428]

13. I think the whole "medal count" thing is stupid, and I've watched the Olympics

consistently for over 50 years.

[Goodheart]

14. Really hard to care.

[MiroJarvis]

17. I'm not against it.

The problem is US media changing the counting system according to the occasion. If they count gold medals first when US is ahead, they should count gold medals first when China is ahead also. This militaristic, overcompetitive "number 1" thing is odd.

[ShazamIam]

19. A reasonable idea, but I think the focus belongs on the individual athletes, it can't be a national

identity competition with so much difference in population and wealth of the larger nations versus small and tiny nations. My hope is a return to celebrating the individual competitors more.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. In medals per million population, the leader is San Marino, with 88.4

At the time of writing (6 August), San Marino held the lead with roughly 88.4 medals per 1 million people. (That’s three medals for a population of 33,931.) Bermuda had roughly 16 medals per million; Grenada 8.9. The most efficient country with a population over 1 million was New Zealand at 3.9. Australia was 1.725, Team GB 0.85 and USA at just 0.3. Suddenly China, at 0.06, doesn’t look quite as impressive.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/07/olympics-medal-table-formats-best-countries

And, impressively, this is not just one person who's won medals in three different forms of one sport - 3 people, across 2 sports:

San Marino has won three medals at the Olympics, two in shooting and one in wrestling, with all three thus far coming at Tokyo 2020. Its most successful athlete is Alessandra Perilli, who, having finished 4th in the Women's Trap final at London 2012, went on to win two medals at Tokyo 2020, first a bronze in the Women's Trap and two days later, silver with Gian Marco Berti in the Mixed Trap Team final.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino_at_the_Olympics

[dsc]

21. We should use the Borda count for this

3 pts for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze.