- Ordered by total number of medals
- If there is a tie in the total then the tie breaker goes to the country with the most golds
- If there is still a tie then the tie breaker goes to the country with the most silvers
- As you would expect, then it is the number of bronzes
- If there is still a tie after that then they rank them in alphabetical order
I'm cool with that system. It's simple, it makes sense, and at the end of the day, I think the total medal count means more than which medals they are (ie. a country with 10 silvers should rank higher than a country with just one gold).
This is how CBC ranks the countries competing in the Olympics with regards to their medal count.... (see their actual list here)
- Ordered by the country with the most golds
- If there is a tie then the the tie breaker goes to the country with the highest total number of medals
- steps 3-5 are the same as above.
I find this to be a very confusing system. It means, as of the time of writing, that Thailand with 1 gold medal total is ranked #27 of the countries and that Hungary, with 4 silvers and 1 bronze, is ranked #47. This seems so wrong to me.
The irony is that Canada, at least in the 2008 summer Olympics, is not a real gold medal nation. Our athletes have reached the podium a respectable number of times but seldom is Oh Canada played while they are standing there.
So, as of 1:36pm MDT, on Canada's own CBC website, Canada is currently ranked as the 17th country due to only 2 gold medals. However, our neighbours to the south have ranked Canada as 13th due to our total haul of 13 medals. I'm all for humility but CBC is taking TOO humble of an approach with respect to our Canadian athletes. I say change the ranking system to reflect what the US does and go by total number of medals. WE'RE NUMBER 13! WE'RE NUMBER 13!!!!! YAY!!!!!!
Of course I reserve the right to retract this post and change my allegiance to the CBC system if Canada gets a flurry of gold medals which ranks us higher with that system. ;)
3 comments:
I totally agree with you, and was pondering this today. I don't like CBC's ranking system at all. It makes little sense to me.
I agree also. I've been constantly flipping back and forth between the two networks. I've noticed that, while CBC has the good interviews with Canadian Athletes, they also show far too many events without Canadians in them during prime time hours. I then flip over to NBC, and they're showing Men's diving, where a Canadian won Silver, and the only American was near the bottom of the list of finalists. It's almost like we're getting better coverage down there, at least during prime time, than we are up here. Odd!
BTW, the offical Olympics site tallies medals the same way as CBC (gold > overall > silver > bronze).
I notice that NBC's way, while it actually makes more sense to me, also means that the US is always on top. I wonder if that's why they do it that way.
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