Medal Count - Who cares?

Yes, I know, the Olympic medal count is sacred. Winning the overall (and gold) medal count proves the athletic superiority of your country! Right.

The only thing the medal count is useful for is counting medals. You can see which country has won the most medals. You can see if a country won more medals than in previous games, although this is tricky if the number of events changes. When did synchronized diving become an Olympic sport?

Now, divers can not only win their regular diving events, they can also team up and win the synchronized diving competition. Nice. While there may (and I stress the word "may") be demand for synchronized diving, I find the event to be ridiculous. While the judging in diving hurts it in my sports definition, the additional judging required in the synchronized event essentially eliminates it from any consideration, at least in my eyes. What's next, 3 people diving side-by-side-by-side in harmony? How 'bout 4? I can hardly wait!

Many of the best athletes in the United States play football, baseball and basketball. Hockey and soccer are other team sports that suck up large athletic resources of many countries. And, while basketball, hockey, soccer and baseball (at least this year) are Olympic sports, there is only 1 medal at stake, even though there are at least 12 players on each of those teams. And, while a country might have more than one individual (track events, among others) or team (beach volleyball) in some sports, you only get one entry per country in the large team sports.

So, what's my point? Not all sports are treated equally when it comes to medal allotment. Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals at this Olympics. If Nastia Liukin and her teammates on the USA gymnastics team had swept everything, she would have won 6 gold medals (team, individual all-around, and event finals on the uneven bars, vault, floor and balance beam). Phelps won three relays, the 200 free, two IM's, and the 100 and 200 butterfly. He didn't compete in the 100 and 200 breast and back or the 50, 100, 400, 800 or 1500 free, or any of the ones I may have left off the list.

So, even if you can simplify it down and say that only Olympic events determine the worth of a country's athletes, which you can't, it doesn't make sense to base things solely off medals. But, I guess, if your country's doing well in the medal count, you can go ahead and taunt people from other countries ... but I won't be doing that.