A quick question about the Olympics' medal tally

[marko_the_rat]

Is it standard practice for Americans to count the rankings for the medal tally in the Olympics by counting each medal to be of equal value? For example, it puts Japan ahead of France even though France has 5 gold medals to Japan's 2 (these figures will of course change all the time, but finding examples won't be hard to do). In Australia we rank gold medals first and I took it for granted that's how the rest of the world does it.

Comments

[sunookitsune.livejournal.com]

No, but it is common practice to ignore NBC.

[marko-the-rat.livejournal.com]

Oh, snap!

[lupine52.livejournal.com]

rank is total #of events won, (regardless of # of athletes involved) first and metal place as the tie breaker.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

I was told that it's common to do that in the USA (perhaps because it tends to boost their rating) last time, in 2008, but I don't know whether it's true.