While I do tend to root for the US teams in the Olympics, I find I really dislike the Olympics score cards that track medal counts by country. It’s a grotesque measurement of individual (or team) achievement, purports to heap glory (or ignomy) on a nation for no appreciable reason, and turns what should be a competition and celebration of amazing physical prowess into a tawdry “mine is bigger than yours” competition.
Medal ceremonies with national anthems and the like are fine. Making the Olympics into a simplistic “My country can whip yours” table is irritating.
Feh.
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I agree to a point, but I enjoyed the full list. (But why is it labeled “free medal table”?) “Hey Mongolia got a medal.” “United Arab Emirates got a gold. I wonder what event.” Then the clicking begins. Click to the UAE page. That tells me that it was in “men’s double trap”. Hmm what is that? Click! onto the men’s double trap page. No indication of what it is. several more click only tell me who won what. I finally Googled to find that it is a shooting event.
Very bad site design. Lots of placeholders and the barest information. There is probably more information in the opening program than on this site. Blah!
I think it’s claled “free medal table” because they don’t charge you for it. 🙂
But, yeah, seeing who got what medals is kind of cool, as well as seeing some of the “lesser” events. But …
How about that “first gold medal in a fencing event since 1904” to an American women! I loved the photos of the team throwing her in the air. It took me back to Renwick gyn and Herr Zold.
That was indeed very cool.
*** The Best Left-Handed Dave in All of Room