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| Medal Counts - Do they make any sense whatsoever? |
| Written by MadMark |
| Sunday, 28 February 2010 05:30 |
 For those of us watching the Winter Games - it is the absolute fact that we prefer a gold medal over a silver and over a bronze. In reality, of course, each country (or insert name of your favorite athlete) ends up winning a combination of gold, silver, and bronze. It is entertaining and mind boggling to watch how different news outlets rank these results. Two systems are typically used to rank the medal winning countries (the ones without a single medal seem to be omitted by everyone). Total Medal Count You simply add all the medals up for each country and compare the numbers. This system is an absolute no brainer and is commonly used by the American media. Perhaps this is because we truly believe that being on the awards platform is a sufficient achievement? Or is it because that is what our arithmetic skills permit? Let's hope it to be the former. Some of the influential news outlets using this system include: The problem, of course, is that it ranks a country with 11 bronze medals over another with only 10 gold. Don't think this can happen (by citing some law of averages?)? As of the moment this is written, we have a case of South Korea and Russia. South Korea: 6 gold 6 silver 2 bronze (14 medals total) Russia: 3 gold 5 silver 7 bronze (15 medals total) Russia is placed above South Korea (intentional or not, you decide) because of the extra medal. But one thing you might be able to argue and get points for, is that Russia will probably be willing to trade its set of medals for South Korea's. Medal Type Count (Lexicographic Rank) You simply believe that a gold is worth more than all the silvers you can ever receive. You will proceed by lining up the countries by the number of golds, and in the event of a tie, you use the silvers and then bronze as tie breakers. This is second type of ranking system and is used (not surprisingly) by news outlets outside the U.S. One might also infer from this that some cultures don't believe in second places, or as some put it - we train generals, not soldiers. Some of the influential news outlets using this system include: The problem with this system is the over-emphasis on getting first place. This ranking system will rank a country with a single gold medal over one that's won ten silvers but no golds. We can refer to another actual example, of Britain and Japan. Britain: 1 gold 0 silver 0 bronze (1 medal total) Japan: 0 gold 3 silver 2 bronze (5 medals total) Although one might argue that Britain has a gold while Japan has none, just exactly how much better is Britain over Japan? What if Japan wins a silver on every event onward and Britain gets nothing else? Proposed Ranking System The easiest way is to assign a conversion scale for the medal types. Make one gold equal to two silver and one silver equal to two bronze! Of course, one will probably argue that a gold is better than two silvers or the other way around. In the event of such disagreements, I propose that we let the host country decide. How? By actual weight. Since the host country is responsible in the making of the medals (Canada's medals are simply spectacular!), allow them to control the weight for each medal. If the host country believes that a gold is worth two silvers, set the weight of the gold medal to be twice the silver! If the believed conversion is three, make it three times the weight! That will remove any ambiguity on which country is better than the other in the games. If any of the news media outlets wants to be fair with their ranking system (or display), they should at least make an effort to do better! A re-ranked list based on this scale will factor in both the total medal count as well as the number of each type. |
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