Sugarcoating the Olympic Medals

So I have never posted before, and I'm not actually in China yet, but I've just seen an interesting little piece of news about the battle for best of the sporting goliaths between the US and China.

A Boston Globe worker has just told the BBC that he's been reading the China Daily and how their "sugarcoating" of Olympic medal tallies is trying to make it seem like China is beating the US in Beijing at the moment.


Of course that disregards the fact that they are beating the US, but then again, I suppose it matters how you actually determine what constitutes beating.

Just in case you're unsure of what he means, the US tallies the total number of medals won (Gold, Silver, and Bronze) where China – and I think most other countries – give a weighted preference to Gold. So, where China is ahead of the US by 18 Gold medals at the moment, they are actually in second place by 5 medals in total (82 to 77).

It just seems like there's a bit of bitterness there when an attack on the state-controlled Chinese media is used just because the Chinese Olympic team has won more Golds...
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