Breaking Down the Beijing Olympic Medal Count

The 2008 Summer Olympics are coming to a close, and there's a little controversy over who is winning the medal count. The US holds a 13 medal lead over China (102-89), but the Chinese have 47 gold medals, 16 more than the Americans. The question is, who wins the medal tally, and how exactly do we measure medals?

There is no official "winner" of the games, but to pretend that some in the world would use the dominance in the Olympics to signify political power is a little ignorant. China wants to win the medal count, badly. Not even the former Soviet Union implemented the kind of athlete farming China is pulling now. They're leading in the number of golds, but are behind in the total medals, which begs the question of who is actually "winning" the games.

It's a little silly to simply say the highest total medals is the best, because by that logic 10 bronze medals beats 9 gold medals, which just doesn't feel right.

For the sake of argument, let's assign a gold medal 3 points, a silver medal 2 points, and a bronze medal 1 point, and see how the totals shake out, unofficially, with around 40 medals still to be awarded.


UNITED STATES
Gold: 31 x 3 = 93 points
Silver: 36 x 2 = 72 points
Bronze: 35 x 1= 35 points

TOTAL: 200 points


CHINA
Gold: 47 x 3 = 141 points
Silver: 17 x 2 = 34 points
Bronze: 25 x 1= 25 points

TOTAL: 200 points

So, if you break it down that way, the US and China are currently tied at the top, but what about those 40 remaining medals?
Well, the US is guaranteed at least 5 more silvers (or potentially golds) by reaching the finals in men's and women's volleyball, men's and women's basketball, and men's water polo, and the potential for a bronze medal in baseball. The bulk of the medals to be given out are in boxing and track, but most likely the US will end up winning the "total medals" race, but in this fake analysis the US would have to win gold in a majority of those 5 finals to be the "winner" of the games.

It still doesn't officially mean anything, and it's not as though they're going to give a trophy out to the country with the most medals or with the most weighted points, that's not the "spirit of the games." But if the US does end up on top, it means China didn't come through on its goal completely, and I was completely wrong in thinking that Plan 119, hosting the games in Beijing, and using less experienced athletes in Athens in 2004 would give the Chinese a definitive advantage in winning the medal count.

Once Again, US Men's Soccer Disappoints...

Early this morning the US Men's Olympic Soccer team lost to Nigeria 2-1, eliminating them from medal contention. This is the latest in a series of really bad disappointments from the Men's National Team since their quarterfinal run in the 2002 World Cup (which should have been a semifinal run or more, the Germany game is still a mockery of officiating).

I hate to say it, but we still have not learned to properly compete on the international level. We've got players with talent, a slowly but surely emerging league (the MLS is adding Seattle, Philadelphia, and most likely another Canadian city in the next 3 years), and some of our best players are in the best leagues in the world. Jozy Altidore now plays with Villareal, Adu with Benfica and now on loan at AS Monaco. Even Damarcus Beasley and Landon Donovan, the two young promising stars from the 2002 Cup are still very good players.

We brough a mysterious U23 team to the Olympics, just like everyone else, with a few exceptions like keeper Guzan and Brian McBride. We played terribly in the first match, but still snuck through on a goal from Holden to beat Japan 1-0. We thought maybe this team of youngsters could pull something off. They fought back from a goal down against Holland to lead the game 2-1 in the final ten minutes, looking as though to go through to the quarters where they were expected to fail. Then...the usual team USA showed up. Freddy Adu got his second yellow in as many games, suspended for the final group game, and then was removed by coach Piotr Nowak, leaving nobody in the midfield to hold the ball away from the Dutch. Michael Bradley got it into his head to waste a ton of time around the 90th minute, and got himself a second yellow card in two games, suspending him for the thrid group game as well. And finally, the very same Holden that saved us against Japan made a costly foul in stoppage time to lead to the Dutch tying goal, screwing the US out of the win they deserved, and making the last group game against Nigeria a "can't lose" situation.

I'm not sure how the US would do in "must win" situations, but I know one thing: when all we have to do is tie, we always find a way to lose. It's incredible the kind of crap we get ourselves into when all we have to do is hold out for once.

All we had to do was hold for ninety minutes against Nigeria, one of the fastest teams at the games. We just had to settle in, not concede an early goal, and maybe carve out some possession to keep the Nigerians from cutting us up on the wings. Four minutes in, another typically American bonehead move cost us composure. Michael Orozco elbowed a man in the chest right in plain sight of the center referee, getting himself a red card. Playing a man down and without Adu or Bradley, the US allowed two goals to Nigeria before staging a desperate attempt at a comeback, leading to a Sascha Kljestan penalty kick and a Benny Feilhaber header off the crossbar.

Seeing the comeback fall just sort of the tie we so desperately needed just amplified how much we set ourselves back with the loss of Adu, Bradley, and Orozco even before the game really got started. The team shot themself in the foot once again, forced to play from behind in an insurmountable fashion.

Over the past six years we've failed spectacularly when everyone is watching. The 2006 World Cup was horrific in the opening loss to the Czech Republic, the two red cards against Italy, and Claudio Reyna's bum knee and Oguchi Onyewu's non-penalty against Ghana. Now with the collapse against Holland and playing from behind against Nigeria, I doubt the composure of any American team to compete on the highest level.

It's as though the run in 2002 didn't give us confidence so much as heap pressure on our team to the point where they are crushed under the stress. I don't really understand it, but with hope the senior national team can learn to relax, and perhaps play out the rest of World Cup qualifying with some ease, hopefully going to South Africa in 2010 with a new frame of mind.

The Olympics So Far

I've been watching a lot of the 2008 Olympics, definitely more than I expected to. I stayed up to watch both US Men's Soccer matches, watched a ton of swimming, and have even watched a little of diving and gymnastics among other lesser events. Here are just a few reactions I've had:


NBC needs to stop putting "LIVE" on its broadcasts to anywhere but the East coast...because they're pre-recorded telecasts that are parading as live. Last night's 200m Freestyle was a perfect example. It was a live telecast at around 10pm Eastern Time, but was not broadcast on the West coast until three hours later, depriving a large viewing audience of the thrill of the live race. I'm just a little upset that NBC thinks they'll get higher ratings by rebroadcasting later when people are more likely to watch when they haven't found out the results on the internet.


This story is one in a long line to me that the Chinese Olympic officials just don't understand that you cannot be perfect. That level of tampering in order to acheive a perfect image is scary. We're talking V for Vendetta and Brave New World scary. It's adjusting and fine tuning an image to such a degree that we don't notice what's beautiful, only the huge amount of flaws. Shoving aside protesters and dissenters, not allowing full media and journalist coverage in the way that was promised, these are things that show they are too self conscious. The Opening Ceremony looked very nice, but they spent $300 million on it. A lot of things will look nice when Zhang Yimou is given a $300 million dollar budget to direct a performance, but what country has enough money to waste on PR like this?

I don't know, maybe I'm just at a cultural divide, but I'm just concerned that we're losing sight of the societal stories that were big before the Olympics. Pollution is still there, the treatment of Tibet is still afwul, and we're focusing on Phelps chasing Spitz and the Chinese Gymnastics team instead. The medal count is irrelevant to me, the US doesn't finish first every time (only in the past 10 years have they been dominant in the Summer games), especially when you consider the Winter Olympics. Why then is it a big deal if China tops the medal count? It's not a political statement to have more medals at the Olympics, there are still things wrong that can't be hidden by staging an elaborate Opening Ceremony.


On more sport related notes, I couldn't care less if Phelps matches or beats Spitz's record of 7 golds in swimming, he's a fantastic athlete and he represents the country well.

The men's soccer team put themselves in a terrible position to qualify for the quarterfinals with a 2-2 tie with Holland. Losing Freddy Adu and Michael Bradley to yellow card suspensions for their final group game against a very quick Nigeria team won't help either. Bradley got his yellow for time wasting after the 90th minute, an absolutely boneheaded move.

Team handball is kind of cool, but man is that Brazilian women's goalie annoying when she thinks she's winning. Good thing Hungary scored a last-second goal to tie it.

Week 1 belongs to swimming and gymnastics, Week 2 belongs to track. I'm just not sure how long China can keep up medal dominance when I've never heard of a Chinese track athlete doing well.

If softball, baseball, soccer, and other obviously athletic sports and competitions are in danger of no longer being Olympic events, then there's no way that a ton of the shooting events should be in play. A ton of these less athletic and less exciting events have a ton of medal categories whereas soccer, softball, baseball, water polo, and other team sports only award one set of medals to men and women. It seems a little bit weird to me that we've added these crappy events and don't change them as much as the big sports. I understand that the Olympics are the big competition for those "sports" and soccer, baseball, basketball, and the like have more important professional or international trophies, but the Olympics are still where these big world sports belong.

I'll probably have more reactions as the results come in, so I'll write more on the Olympics as they continue.