Franz Strasser Blog

Graphic by nytimes.com

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When it comes to the medal count, Canada is not doing well - we get that. But who is actually in the lead? There are different methods that may determine your country's standing in the table and ultimately your reputation on the world stage.

1) Everybody is a winner: In Europe, they tend to count the total medals first. Meaning Austria with 15 bronze would be ahead of South Korea with one gold.

2) Second place is the first loser: In the US, where all they care about is winners, the gold medals count more than anything else, meaning South Korea with one winner would be ahead of 15 mediocre Austrians.

3) Gold first but then what? People agree that winning gold is most important, but what if two countries have three gold medals each? Some tables will put the country with the most silver medals ahead, the other will divert to the total medals as the first tie-breaker.

4) Why easy when we can make it complicated: There are some tables that will give a country 3 points for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze and rank the teams according to their score.

5) I don't care as long as we win: All bets seem to be off when your country has the chance of being in first place. Newspapers and websites will quickly adjust their method of ranking countries to make themselves look better. On Monday, German broadcaster ZDF had Germany ranked number 1 on their website. The Germans were tied with the U.S. in gold but sported less total medals and less total points. In this case, they were first because they happened to have more silver.

     

Screenshots of zdf.de, nbcolympics.com, vancouversun.com

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Mike Harris, Olympic silver-medalist for Team Canada in Nagano, was our coach. The Vancouver Curling Club the field of battle.

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