Should total medals or gold medals count in Olympic standings?
The Olympic Games are competitions between athletes in individual or team events and not between countries.
- The Olympic Charter, Chapter 1, Section 6
At the end of every day during the Olympics, most of us do something that contravenes the Olympic Charter.
We check the medal count to find out where our nation ranks among the competing countries, and then we either feel patriotic and proud of our Olympians or we prepare a letter to a government representative about increased funding for amateur athletics.
But how do we measure success at the Olympics?
Sure, if you want to gain a smug sense of moral superiority, you can claim that it's all about competition and inspiration. That it's not the medals that count, but rather how many lives were positively impacted through participation.
For the rest of us, though, we go to the medal count, and depending on where we look, we might get a very different sense of which nation is having the best Olympics.
According to NBC's Winter Olympics coverage, Norway and the United States, lead the rest of the pack with their 13 medals.
| Rank | Country | G | S | B | T |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Norway | 4 | 3 | 6 | 13 |
| 2 | United States | 4 | 3 | 6 | 13 |
| 3 | Netherlands | 4 | 3 | 5 | 12 |
| 4 | Russian Federation | 2 | 5 | 5 | 12 |
| 5 | Germany | 7 | 2 | 1 | 10 |
Meanwhile, BBC's coverage claims that Germany's seven gold medals is tops, despite the fact the Germans have only won 10 total medals. On theScore app, you'll also find Germany in first place, followed by Switzerland - who would rank seventh according to NBC.
| Rank | Country | G | S | B | T |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Germany | 7 | 2 | 1 | 10 |
| 2 | Switzerland | 5 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| 3 | Canada | 4 | 4 | 2 | 12 |
| 4 | Norway | 4 | 3 | 6 | 13 |
| 5 | United States | 4 | 3 | 6 | 13 |
So, who's right, and who's wrong?
The answer is everyone.
The IOC and the OCOG shall not draw up any global ranking per country.
- The Olympic Charter, Chapter 5, Section 58
There's no official medal table. However, as you might expect from the IOC, what's said in the Olympic Charter doesn't necessarily represent what's practiced in reality.
The official Sochi 2014 website features a medal table using the gold-first system, and since 1992, the IOC has accommodated media members with medal tables, again using the gold-first system.
So, while there's nothing official, and its ultimately a matter of preference, there's more of a case to be made for ranking teams by gold medals. The best example in favor of the gold-first standard comes from a simple game of "would you rather."
Would you rather be from a nation that wins a gold in an event, or wins silver and bronze, while missing out on the gold?
In the past, there have been proposals for a weighted medal table (three or four points for a gold, two for a silver, one for a bronze), but thankfully, most people aren't pedantic enough to care this deeply on the matter.
Personally, my advice is to follow whatever table ranks your nation higher, and of course, criticize anyone who thinks differently - at least until the medal tables get turned. That's the true Olympic spirit.