No Idiots, China Won the Olympics

Now that the Olympics are officially over, I want to take a moment to point out the absurdity of the medal tracking used by major media outlets, at least here in the United States. Similar to the tracker below from CNN, we are forgetting to weight these fucking scores when determining the most successful countries in all around Olympic performance. CNN will have you believe that the United States won the “Gold” in the Olympics, but I beg to differ.

Let’s do some simple math to determine the real winner….

Gold = 3 points

Silver = 2 points

Bronze = 1 point

*The country with the most cumulative points wins. It’s that simple.

United States Point Breakdown:

36 Gold (36*3) = 108

38 Silver (38*2) = 76

36 Bronze (36*1) = 36

Total points for the United States = 220

China Points breakdown:

51 Gold (51*3) = 153

21 Silver (21*2) = 42

28 Bronze (28*1) = 28

Total points for China = 223

China won the fucking Olympics. The prehistorically simple medal tracking calculation needs to go, and I believe that I have proposed a fair solution. In gymnastics, diving, and an absurd number of other more obscure sports, scores are calculated to the hundredth of a point, but for the big win, the all around most athletically badass country, we resort to simply going with the total number of medals. What the fuck. I hate to say it, but China won the Olympics…by one twelve year-old gymnast.

Update:  Great post on China winning the Olympics.