Most countries use a lexicographic ordering (first gold, then silver, then bronze), but in the US they rank countries by the total number of medals (it is strange that in a meritocratic country a gold has the same value of a bronze). Both approaches are probably incorrect. The first gives too little weight to non-golds and the second gives too much weight to non-golds. What about weighting silver 2/3 and bronze 1/3? Here are the alternative rankings. The big winner is France that goes from 10th to 7th and the big loser is Japan.
That was then, this is now
16 hours ago
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