TFD/TCTOD: The Olympic medal counter is stupid and needs fixing

A novel idea.

February 15, 2010 at 11:17PM
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Commenter Muxhut steps in with an idea. Muxhut, you have the floor:

Mr Rand -

I've an idea for you.

I would suggest that on Randball, you throw up an Olympic Medal Tracker.

But, instead of just counting up the medals, you need to weigh them as follows:
Gold = 3
Silver = 2
Bronze = 1
Equal total score tiebreaker would be Gold then Silver then Bronze totals.

Hence, the current standings would be as follows:
1: USA: 11 (1G, 2S, 4B)
2: Switzerland: 9 (3G)
3: Germany: 9 (1G, 3S)

I think that people do this out there in the internet world, but my problem is that most of the "big sites" initially show trackers that just add up the total number of medals.

ESPN does it.
Star Tribune does it.
The Vancouver 2010 site does it.
NBC does it.

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What the hell!? This is stupid. 4 Bronze medals do not equal 4 Gold medals. Of course not. This is not a tie, and yet on most sites I found that is the initial presentation.

So, I simply ask that you fix this on your site. You have the power.

While we're not sure if we can whip up a "medal tracker" on RandBall, we would be happy to periodically present the Updated Muxhut Medal Tracker, using his scoring system. It really does make sense. Not that it isn't great to win a bronze medal ... it's just three times as great to win gold. Agreed?

about the writer

about the writer

Michael Rand

Columnist / Reporter

Michael Rand is the Minnesota Star Tribune's Digital Sports Senior Writer and host/creator of the Daily Delivery podcast. In 25 years covering Minnesota sports at the Minnesota Star Tribune, he has seen just about everything (except, of course, a Vikings Super Bowl).

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