2012 Olympics

Rather than defining "winning" as something that is practically impossible to say that one country did, why not just define it as whoever wins the most medals (weighted or otherwise)? For each event, the winners are the ones who got medals, so whichever country won the most medals won the most events and, therefore, very straightforwardly won the Olympics. You could even break it down by category: Russia won Rythmic Gymnastics, China won Badminton, etc.The only problem I see with this is that this makes the Olympics, as a whole, have very little to do with that "sporting culture" or whatever was mentioned before. Its more about who is the biggest and richest country. I can see why people would be turned off by that, but its a fact nonetheless.All it really does is make the saying that the US won the Olympics loose any realy value as a claim of something of any importance.And for bluegenes to come out saying that if you disregard the biggest factors in winning the Olympics (size and money) then the US doesn't look all that impressive in its last remaining stat just looks like poor loser talk to me. Why not? Does hosting affect your medal count, or something? Should that be taken into account for y'alls number of medals this year?

We want to hear that you know it. You acknowledge that we won based on "wealth, size, and culture/ethnicity.", point out that our culture stat was ordinary, and then say that measuring by that we aren't really the winners. And now you say that's what we're doing... That's just loser talk. And if we had your culture stat, we'd turn the Olympics into a joke with our 300+ medals. But really the point of our claim to winning the Olympics is really just acknowledging that we're the biggest and best country.

The "poor loser talk" was being applied as much to the UK as the US. Read what Bluegenes wrote as the reason for raising these issues:

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So, why mention all this? I get the impression from looking at the American media that many Americans won't realise that the U.S. performance was actually below average to "first world" (wealthy country) standards. (Also, to Eastern European standards). What the 104 medals tell you is what you already know: that you are by far the largest of the world's wealthy countries. But if you want to measure the "culture" aspect you are (like the U.K. - the last two Olympics were exceptions, not the rule!) pretty ordinary.

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With all the excessive flag waving that's been going on here in the U.K., it's a good idea to bring Brits down to earth by pointing out that we only came about 21st, not 3rd or 4th, when population size is taken into account.

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Message 111It's a reality check.

Meh, its still poor loser talk:"Yeah, you won, but you really didn't play that well!"

From the Newsroom:"And you, Sorority Girl, just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there’s some things you should know. One of them is there’s absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re seventh in literacy. Twenty-seventh in math. Twenty-second in science. Forty-ninth in life expectancy. A hundred and seventy-eighth in infant mortality. Third in median household income. Number four in labor force and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies.

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Now none of this is the fault of a twenty-year-old college student, but you nonetheless are without a doubt a member of the worst, period, generation, period, ever, period. So when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I dunno what the fuck you’re talkin’ about. Yosemite?

Pfft, whatever, we totally kicked ass at the Olympics.

You obviously aren't receptive to reality checks. Have fun congratulating yourself for being so gloriously fantastic.

Sore loser talk......?

As I've mentioned before (and I hope you haven't missed any of my posts), one of the nice things about EvC is that we get to define our own winning conditions. For me, I consider it a win if I learn something or, more rarely, if somebody learns something from me. I also consider a cheer a win. If I wasn't winning something, I probably wouldn't be here.I think the same applies to the Olympics. Different nations and different groups of people have different winning conditions. As I mentioned earlier, Canadians consider it a win if we do "pretty well". For small nations like Slovenia, any medal is a huge win.For my money, "most medals" is a pretty trivial win. It's a bit like saying, "I have more trees in my yard than you do." But if you want to go with that, that's fine.From my viewpoint, considering the events I'm most interested in, Jamaica won the Olympics, hands down.

Right, and since we already knew who the big rich countries were, it's almost an entirely boring way to view the Olympics. Well, it isn't something of any importance. Beating China is pretty much the only thing that can be called an achievement. In gold medals2012: 1st
2008: 2nd
2004: 1st
2000: 1st
1996: 1st
1992: 2nd
1988: 3rdSo coming first isn't really something of importance. The third largest nation which the most amount of wealth did well at sports? Well, fantastic. If, on the hand, the Bahamas had the most gold medals, that would clearly be something of importance.The only sensible measure for the US, as I said, are with itself and with China. Objections to a perfectly legitimate way of making comparisons between nations of varying sizes seem to me like 'poor loser talk'. I'm willing to bet that if the United States happened to be doing well by those other measures, we wouldn't see the objections. If I was to point out that 3000 people die of asthma in the USA, compared with 1000 people who die in the UK - it would be foolish to suggest that the USA has a more serious asthma problem than the UK.But think about it - bluegenes' team came third. By per capita measures they came 23rd. By GDP they came 41st. What's being a sore loser about saying 'technically, maybe we didn't do quite so well as the naive medal tables might indicate'?So yes, as I said, a straight medal number comparison has its usages, but it isn't really all that interesting except as a means to compare ones self against historical rivals.On the other hand, it is quite interesting to see how successful nations are at making the most of what resources (people or money) they have at their disposal. This system, I think perhaps for a number of reasons, actually disfavours the larger/richer countries, but no need to sulk about it, it's just a useful way of comparing similar-ish nations. For instance: for your size the US did well. It didn't beat Russia, but it did beat Japan and Brazil and China. Well that can't be it, can it? After all, I'm allowing 1996, right? You did awesome in 1996, I loved the US Team in 1996. I'm definitely allowing it.But no, it doesn't count for the same reason I won't hold it against the USA that they got 0 medals in 1980.Their main competitors (East Germany and more comparably: the Soviet Union) did not show up. It was a boycott year, remember? That the US did really well that year is best left out as far as examining their relative historical successes. If there was a home-team advantage to the Olympics, I wouldn't get upset if someone made a medal table that attempted to account for this effect. Just like I wouldn't get upset at someone mentioning that Britain's Olympic 'win' in 1908 is not all that impressive.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I ask this question in all seriousness.Many Brits who failed to see the Olympics are getting paralympics tickets as a means of going to the venues and seeing some sporting action. It's a sellout. And all good for that.But how seriously does the rest of the world take the paralympics?Working for my Aussie Olympics related contruction employer I know that all the VIP suites that were setup for the Olympics have closed down, that all the big corporate cheeses we had to pander to have gone home and that from the "corporate" angle the paralympics is a bit of a sideshow that the plebs are welcome to now the main event is over.Where I work the Olympics tickets went to the top brass from around the globe (some of the millionairres who descended on London with their families in tow) but the paralympic tickets have been allocated to the rest of us.It seems to be that sort of relationship....

I tend to see the Paralympics as something like motor racing - a testing ground for new technology. (That isn't just faster wheelchairs but also better ways of using what you've got and taking care of what you've got.) In my opinion, those sports that constantly improve our capabilities are more "worthy" than, say football, which is really just a game.

Unlike hockey, which is just a combination of three activities...

I would classify hockey as a game, as opposed to speed-skating which is a sport.I saw a game once in which the winning goal was scored in the last few seconds. The losing team protested on the grounds that the puck was pushed into the net. After reviewing the tape, the officials allowed the goal because the scorer had been tripped and only pushed the puck because he was falling at the time. The outcome of the game was decided based on two rather arbitrary rules rather than on anybody's skill.

Well, I've always been much more interested in video games than sports. The only Olympics that I actually watched were female gymnastics and beach volleyball...