Notwithstanding Tibet, the conflict in Xinjiang, suppression of Falun Dafa, the alleged connection to the alleged genocide in Darfur, broken promises of a free press, the pollution and eviction of citizens from Beijing, or the less than flattering revelation of how the “live” opening of the Olympics was not quite as “live” as it should have been — not to mention the use of a substitute child lip-syncing the song at the opening ceremony because the actual singer was not pretty enough — another phenomenon which this Olympics will forever be associated with is the competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. The methods used to measure the competition at the moment are flawed however.
The Olympics, in a way, can be seen as a proxy battle between the world powers. Prior to the Second World War, the United States was up competing against Germany. The battle was conclusively settled outside of the stadium in 1945 in Berlin.
During the Cold War, it was the US against the Soviet Union. As the Soviet Union crumbled under its own weight, so did the competition between the US and the USSR. Today, it is the PRC versus the US.
The competition between the US and the PRC is not just in the courts of sport. It can also be seen in how the points are tallied and, subsequently, how ranks are determined.
Go to the official website of the Beijing Olympics, head over to the medal count table and immediately a visitor can observe how the count is carried out. At the site, a gold medal is the ultimate yardstick. Regardless of quantity of bronze and silver medals, if a country has more gold medals than the other, the country gets to be on the top.
Head over to any Olympic standings published by the US press and there is a good chance that a person will find that countries are ranked by total medal count, regardless of the value of gold, bronze and silver. That is how the New York Times, FoxNews and MSNBC do it, anyway.
I am unsure how far the different ways of assigning ranks relate to competition between the US and the PRC but it is tempting to attribute the difference to the rivalry between the two countries. Another possibility is that this could be an innocent systematic difference.
A quick check of the official standings of previous editions of the Olympics reveals that it is gold medals that count, not total medals. In the 2000 Sydney Olympics, for instance, Ethiopia ranked 20th with four gold and eight total medals while Ukraine held the 21st place with three gold and 23 medals in total. The US ranked first, having the most gold and total medals.
The same arrangement is true for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Italy ranked 6th with 13 gold and 35 total medals while Australia ranked 7th with nine gold but 41 total medals. Just as with the 2000 edition, the US reigned supreme by garnering the most gold as well as total medals.
I am unsure how the US media did their rankings for the 1996 and the 2000 Games. Therefore, I cannot comment on the consistency of the US media but it is safe to say that the official convention at the Beijing Olympics is in line with past practice.
One way to see if bias has played a role in the determination of ranks would be to see if changes of circumstances of standings under a particular convention would lead to changes of convention.
Regardless, each convention suffers from a serious flaw respectively. Are 50 bronze medals worth less than a single gold medal? Is a gold medal worth as much as a bronze or a silver medal?
Surely the answer is no to both questions.
Yet, under the gold convention as officially adopted at the 2008 Olympic Games, the answer is yes to the first question and no to the second question. Under the total medal convention as adopted by the US media, the answer is reversed.
Truly, all participants actually care about winning a medal and what kind of medal. Gold is obviously the most favoured medal. Silver is not bad too if gold is out of reach. And better bronze than nothing, do you not think so?
The fact that participants compete for these medals and obviously hold transitive preferences for each type of medal insists that both types of ranking adopted by the Beijing Olympics and the US media are flawed. If the rankings are not flawed, then the principle of microeconomics would have to see a complete overhaul!
It would be the end of economics as we know it.
Seriously!
For those who truly wish to right the wrongs of the world, we can begin by restructuring the way countries are ranked in the Olympics. Weight to medal should be assigned to reflect the transitive nature of preference for different types of medals.
We could assign three points for gold, two for silver and one for bronze. The sum of points would then determine the final standings.
I think this is a worthy cause to fight for. I shall take up my dissatisfaction against the IOC by protesting in front of their headquarters soon. So, who is with me?
A version of this article was first published in The Malaysian Insider.
