Its obvious to everyone that the Country with the most Gold medals sits atop the medal table.

One Gold medal is more important than 2 Silvers or 3 Bronzes.

In a country like America where only winning matters,its surprising they don't adopt this winning mentality to their medals table.

Very true. Here in Canada, the networks are limited on what they can show so they provide outtakes or have to tell us what some of the results are. I can say that soccer has been played. I couldn't even tell you who the teams were anymore though. I nearly fell asleep watching it. Explain to me someone how Ping Pong ended up an Olympic sport?

Haha, at least someone in CNN is brave enough to speak out about this. Lucky for me, I installed a program and watched all the games live on CCTV, the Chinese "state-run media". I'll tell you that this "state-run media" broadcasts the games so much better than NBC, which insists on making us wait for a 12 hour delay for almost every game! And I was surprised to find that NBC is really biased while commenting on the competitions, while "state-run" CCTV was almost too neutral to bear! How ironic is that? Of course everyone counts the gold! The US just wants to look good. Can't change the fact that US is losing b6 16 gold medals, ha!

Um, have you noticed that's what cnn.com does as well?

I agree with you, it's the number of gold medals that's important, but we wouldn't want our beloved country to be second, would we? ;)

Table Tennis likely began as a social hobby in England toward the end of the 1800's. Dining-room tables and balls of cork made up some of the early equipment that was used. These early pioneers may have referred to their sport as gossima, flim-flam, or ping-pong. Around the turn of the century, the game underwent a few changes in England. One person introduced a celluloid ball to the game, while another added pimpled rubber to the wooden paddle.

The recreational game lost some of its popularity until various groups around Europe revived it as "table tennis" in the 1920s. The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) was formed in 1926. The sport soon spread to Japan and other Asian nations. The Japanese dominated the sport for much of the 50s and 60s, however the Chinese soon closed the gap. China alone dominated the sport for much of the 60's and 70's, but after Table Tennis became an Olympic event in the 1980's, other nations such as Sweden and South Korea have joined the top ranks.

USA dominate swimming. So should we get rid of all others from the Olympics?

Excellent point. Liked your other blog too. More?

I completely understand the frustration other countries must feel by the way the media has been treating this entire Olympics (ie the medal count, the underage frenzy, the coverage of only two or three events), and believe me it is very true here in the US. Unfortunately, we (the people) do not control such coverage and are subjected to the results ourselves. I find it rather deplorable that so many people have such a bias against all things American during these games just because the media coverage is more than shoddy. Believe you me, you aren't the only ones suffering. But the bashing of all Americans on some forums has got to stop. Isn't the Olympics supposed to be about unity and fair play?

Always the medal table was organized by golden medal, but in this year the main american, said USA, journals and TV decided to organized by total. Why????

Simple answer...Now USA is the SECOND sport force in the world, sure, considering Olympic Games.

What´s the problem with this?

But this is fanny, with this classification my country is better.
Thank you USA?

Accept this new order in the world i :-).

Thank you for pointing out the obvious bias in American news coverage.

Why can't the U.S. media even get the scoreboard right? China should be on top in the medal standings, not the U.S.A.

Equestrian and pentathlon should be banned from the Olympic games. These two rely on how strong horses are and how well they are trained, and less on human athleticism. They are cruel to the horses too.

I think it is a joke the US media is potraying USA is winning in the Olympics by the total amount of medals.

NOwhere else in the world has this kind of reporting.

Comon, just because this year USA doesnt have enough gold medals to show, u guys still put USA on top in terms of total?

Gold in world market price is worth MORE than silver or gold.....

First is first and second is second. Gold medals mean you are top above others. So what if a country received 111 bronze medals withut any Gold or even Silver? The US media should go ask your own sportsmen or women will they be satisfied with a silver medal? Don't be a loser and accept that others can do better than you.

With reference to John's posting, it is with much regret that I noticed how most Amercian media practice dselective reporting to their advantage ie. USA topping the medal table. This smacks of how often Amercia, no doubt a great nation tries to use its media to influence the rest of the world to align with its own standard.

The truth of the matter is, all other major media including IOC, sohu.com, reuters and channelnewasia just to name a few list China at the top of the medal tally.

Furthermore, constant attempts to link the Olympics with human rights issues in hope of discrediting China's achievements in hosting one of the most if not most successful Olympics simply reflects America's insecurity as China rises to threaten America's superpower status.

The spirit of the Olympics is "One World, One Dream" and this definitely has been achieved whether the American media recognises it or not.

Kudos for your logic and sense.

Americans are cute.

to talk about this subject is so so stupid don't you people have something
to do with your time. Your lives must be like watching paint dry.

Its very sad, that the American media choose to portray themselves above China in the medal table even while the whole world watches and laughs at them.

This also dishonours the great achievements of the past when this system would have dropped the USA team down the ranking in spite of the fact they had won more Gold.

Come on America, act your age, its pitiful.

Americans are indeed cute!
I must say that as a Chinese, the NBC broadcast this time, though still biased when it comes to China, has improved quite a bit over previous Olympic broadcast. At least they started to acknowledge some of the positive things about China without ending every sentence with something negative. I don't know if it is because they were broadcasting from China, or that they actually realized how biased they were towards China, sure hope the trend continues. To consistently put down a country and nitpick negative things is not very American to me.

USA is a very BAD LOSER at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
It refused to acknowledge that China is No.1 beating the USA to second place in the Olympics.
China won 51 GOLD medals vs USA with only 36 gold medals.
Biased USA media put it as top in ranking, by putting a dishonest spin counting total medals instead of ranking by Gold medals. This is a stupid way of ranking. Do you think a Silver medal or a Bronze medal is equal to a Gold medal? If Phelps had won 8 Bronze medals, does it make him the best swimmer in the world? I guess only the biased and racially prejudiced people of the USA can say this kind of lies and untruth to the rest of the world. Nobody in the rest of the world put USA as No.1, WE all say China is the TRUE No.1 at the Beijing Olympics, and USA is a VERY BAD LOSER at No.2.
If you USA people really want to count total medals as the yardstick, fine. Medals have different values and weightage as we all know, except USAers who are so poor in mathematics.
You are the laughing stock of the world and the International Community.
Let's make it simple for you USAers:
1 Gold medal = 2 Silver medals = 4 Bronze medals.
Even a elementary school pupil can tell you that China is the No.1 Champion of the 2008 Olympic Games beating the USA to distant second place ranking.