Who Takes the Cake in Total Medal Count

[rpa]

I'd love to see the US take the total medal count and the gold medal count but I see China taking it; 2 reasons:

1) Home field advantage is going to give their athletes that much more motivation
2) The Chinese are targeting a lot of sports/areas where they think that they can win medals (I forget the name--project 119 or something--but those that saw the opening ceremonies heard Costas mention it 3 or 4 times)

[LLJ]

winning most overall medals IMO is more important.
just finishing in top 3 is a huge achievement.

It depends. Winning most overall just means you have more talent. Most Gold means you're playing for best or bust.

[Nuzzo]

China will take it, they will dominate non-score/time events like gymnastics and diving, also China is using great coach at the weightlifting - mister Do Ping.
Medal count is overrated, its most important to be remembered - if Mike Phelps wins 8 golds it will be bigger than almost everything else(unless Team USA trashes all teams by 30pts on avg. or some boxer winning all his fights with KO). I mean who won the fencing competition in Berlin..everyone remembers Jesse Owens.

[BlackMamba]

yeah, in the end it's like with the official count, the one with the most gold medals takes the 1st place, so it's better to have the most gold medals, but having the most medals overall also shows how dominant you were during the olympics.

[Blame Rasho]

Homecourt counts alot in the Olympics.... my logic tells me China.

[Texas Longhorns]

China is doing an excellent job right now. I don't think they can take the overall medal count, but now I think they can take the gold. The U.S. is basically just getting Silver and Bronze in everything besides swimming so far.

[Ming Kong!]

Phelp has taken 5 golds, and we still are 7 away from the Chinese. So the gold count has to go to China.

[canoner]

best way to do it is to estimate how many gold team USA and team China can win. It is not that difficult, just go through all events one by one.

[NoSkyy]

I think for me it depends on what events you get the medals in(more so). Not to take anything away from certain events, but when you take largely gold in something like Shooting/Weightlifting. Something that to me is not as interesting to watch or appealing to me to do then I would have to say the overall medal count.

This also brings up the question something; what is more important that ONE medal in Basketball/Hand ball/Volleyball/team sport or events with multiple medals?

[canoner]

I think for me it depends on what events you get the medals in(more so). Not to take anything away from certain events, but when you take largely gold in something like Shooting/Weightlifting. Something that to me is not as interesting to watch or appealing to me to do then I would have to say the overall medal count.

This also brings up the question something; what is more important that ONE medal in Basketball/Hand ball/Volleyball/team sport or events with multiple medals?

What is more interesting is up to debate. Team events should count more IMO. Phelps is great and if he wins 8 gold it is wonderful. But no way it is as meaningful as 8 golds in team events, or even 2 golds in team events. And I bet a lot of countries would value the single gold in soccer more than his 8 golds. And honestly speaking, there are too many swimming events, 34 of them. I can understand why track and field has so many events, but swimming? When in the history of human race did men live in water?

[Al n' Perk No Layups!]

OK, this is a question for everyone.

Which is more important to you? Winning the most gold medals or winning the most overall medals? (If you had to choose one or the other)

Both are very important but personally I like total medal count, just because it's a bigger number and sounds more impressive. I think 103 medals sounds better than 36 golds.

Gold medal count is a very close second though.

[canoner]

Will anyone take 10 silvers over 9 golds simply because 10 > 9? Why have gold, silver, and bronze then? Why not just give top 3 a medal, no difference? Why even have finals?

[Blame Rasho]

Will anyone take 10 silvers over 9 golds simply because 10 > 9? Why have gold, silver, and bronze then? Why not just give top 3 a medal, no difference? Why even have finals?

[Al n' Perk No Layups!]

Will anyone take 10 silvers over 9 golds simply because 10 > 9? Why have gold, silver, and bronze then? Why not just give top 3 a medal, no difference? Why even have finals?

Did a country who won 1 gold in some obscure event with no other medals do better than a country that won 11 silver and 9 bronze but no gold? Are you saying finishing top three in the world is unimpressive?

[Guy986]

Will anyone take 10 silvers over 9 golds simply because 10 > 9? Why have gold, silver, and bronze then? Why not just give top 3 a medal, no difference? Why even have finals?

Did a country who won 1 gold in some obscure event with no other medals do better than a country that won 11 silver and 9 bronze but no gold? Are you saying finishing top three in the world is unimpressive?

Not as impressive as winning #1 in the world. Let's put it this way, would the US basketball team rather have 10 Bronze Medal or 1 gold?

Objectively i think a gold medal should be atleast the equivalent of 5 bronze or 2 silver.

[5DOM]

Will anyone take 10 silvers over 9 golds simply because 10 > 9? Why have gold, silver, and bronze then? Why not just give top 3 a medal, no difference? Why even have finals?

Did a country who won 1 gold in some obscure event with no other medals do better than a country that won 11 silver and 9 bronze but no gold? Are you saying finishing top three in the world is unimpressive?

Not as impressive as winning #1 in the world. Let's put it this way, would the US basketball team rather have 10 Bronze Medal or 1 gold?

Objectively i think a gold medal should be atleast the equivalent of 5 bronze or 2 silver.

i dunno, 10 bronze in 10 olympics >>> 1 gold and no other medals in 10 olympics IMO.

but i know where you are going with this.

I think a point system would be nice.

like 5 points for gold, 3 for silver, 1 for bronze.

but who's to say 5 bronze = 1 silver.

[Al n' Perk No Layups!]

Will anyone take 10 silvers over 9 golds simply because 10 > 9? Why have gold, silver, and bronze then? Why not just give top 3 a medal, no difference? Why even have finals?

Did a country who won 1 gold in some obscure event with no other medals do better than a country that won 11 silver and 9 bronze but no gold? Are you saying finishing top three in the world is unimpressive?

Not as impressive as winning #1 in the world. Let's put it this way, would the US basketball team rather have 10 Bronze Medal or 1 gold?

Objectively i think a gold medal should be atleast the equivalent of 5 bronze or 2 silver.

There aren't 10 Men's Basketball events, If their were and I had the option of one medal or ten I would take ten. They would rather have the gold, but I'll take ten medals, we can pick up the one gold in another event.

Here's the deal, I'd rather have my country win a gold than a silver or bronze, I want to see them win gold in every event, but at the end of the competition I'd rather have a triple digit medal count than a slight lead in golds.

[Guy986]

i dunno, 10 bronze in 10 olympics >>> 1 gold and no other medals in 10 olympics IMO.

but i know where you are going with this.

I think a point system would be nice.

like 5 points for gold, 3 for silver, 1 for bronze.

but who's to say 5 bronze = 1 silver.

I think that's very fair. 5 points for gold, 3 for silver and 1 for bronze.

[j127]

I think the CBC or NBC broadcast mentioned it, but China's philosophy is 1 gold = 1000 silvers.

Just goes to show you what China is gunning for.

The US values most medals above anything else in my opinion. The Olympics has traditionally valued the number of golds more than anything else. That's why if you go to the official Olympic website and the medal counts of most non-US media outlets, the number of gold medals is the standard by which they view who did the "best" in the Olympics.

And I put "best" in quotes, because I don't think it really matters. It's sort of unfair to begin with. America has the best facilities in the world and the money. China has the most amount of people and a crazy Olympic program. Russia and Germany also have great programs that the majority of the world cannot possibly have or pay for.

In any case, I put my money on Canada taking the overall medal count.

[deNIEd]

China.

You can't beat a centralized government the size of China and the level of value the Chinese government/nation has put into these olympics.

America just simply doesn't care enough to win over China.