Biting Gold Medals?

Please, no more biting of gold medals.

Olympic Medal Tally

During the 2008 Olympic Games, the United States won 110 total medals, while China won 100. China looks to be the new USSR in international sports competition, with its sports schools for children and goal of trying to dominate the overall medal tally. See this column by Dan Wetzel for a discussion of China's efforts to lead the world and its competition against and social differences with the USA.

As it is very possible China will succeed in winning the overall medal title in four years because of its national program, a weight system needs to be used by news media to give balance to the total performance of each nation. While Communist nations of the past (USSR, East Germany) and present (China) attempt to approve supremecy by piling up medals in little known niche sports, the USA dominate the sprint events in track & field. For example, China's track & field team is weak, but it did manage a gold in women's 10 meter air pistol. The fact is, a gold medal in the men's 4x400 meter relay in track(USA) is much more of an accomplishment the the team title in men's table tennis(China).

Instead of giving China one tally mark for gold in Table tennis and the USA a tally for gold in the 4x400 meter relay, the countries that win the more competitive events and sports should be given more credit for these victories. In high school, earning an "A" in an advanced placement course enables a student to accumulate a GPA higher than 4.0 because an AP "A" is given more than 4 points. Likewise, gold in track & field should be worth more than gold in table tennis because track is a more widely competed sport.

Here is a proposed scoring system for weighing Olympic medals:

1.5 points per medal: Track & Field, Swimming, Artistic Gymnastics, Football(Soccer), Basketball.

1.25 points per medal: all other team sports, Boxing, Wrestling, Beach Volleyball.

1 point per medal: all other sports.

Olympic Team Handball

Here is a great article on Handball.