The Olympics are over, but which country really ranks where on the medal table? There is no official way of ranking the medal count because the media decides.

Did you know that the “IOC does not use any ranking system or medal table for the Games”? But that “the media and others do, of course, [and] it is entirely up to them…”

It’s an important question: is it victory by total medals, or just gold?

This is a very valid debate that the Wall Street Journal has raised as the Games came to an end yesterday.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The 2012 Olympics did manage to do something the 2008 games did not: bring clarity to the top of the medal standings. A late surge allowed the US to finish ahead of China in overall medals by 17 and in golds by eight. But after that, things immediately got murkier. Host Britain ranked No. three in most medal tables around the world with a five-gold lead over Russia.

The websites of the Olympics organisers, the BBC, the Moscow Times and Xinhua, the Chinese government newswire, all rank countries by golds. But on US media sites that sort by overall medals, including NBC’s and The Wall Street Journal’s, Britain falls to No. four behind Russia, which held 17 more medals overall.

Olympic organisers help fuel the debate by not settling on a single system for ranking countries. Zoë Fox, a spokeswoman for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, known as Locog, says the International Olympic Committee doesn’t “insist on having a medal table at the games, therefore it’s up to the organising committees what they do.” Locog decided to sort by golds as a default on the website, which, it turns out, has been favourable to the host nation. That also has been the convention in the U.K. media. “However, either way is entirely valid, whether ranking by golds or by overall medals,” she said. “The IOC does not use any ranking system or medal table for the Games,” said IOC spokesman Andrew Mitchell. “The media and others do, of course, but it is entirely up to them.”

It’s easy to see where things can get a little confusing if we consider the following:

Researchers who study rankings say such discrepancies are inevitable with something as arbitrary as an Olympics medal table. It starts with how many medals are awarded per event: Most award three, but that’s not set in stone. In boxing, there are four: Both boxers who lose semifinals matches win bronze, instead of squaring off for the bronze medal.

It’s been suggested that a sliding scale for medal rankings could be used – three points for gold, two for silver, and one for bronze. If that were the case, Russia would finish ahead of Great Britain.

What do you suggest?

[Source: WSJ]