In the 3½ years of college I attended – plus the five hours one morning when I tested out of 12 hours of mandatory courses – I attended not a single class in mathematics. One of the advantages of majoring in Journalism and Communications at Point Park University decades ago was the absence of a math requirement.
There was a semester in Probability and Statistics in high school, though I couldn’t probably tell you much of what I learned.
I didn’t need any of that, anyway, to know a dumb stat when I see one.
And there’s none more vacant than the Olympic medal count.
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It was ubiquitous during the Paris Games, as it always is: on NBC during breaks in competition, even on the nighttime local news. It even came up on my computer screen every morning when I logged on to start work.
And it’s still the stupidest statistic in all of sports.
You think rebounding margin doesn’t matter anymore? Or the RBI? There has been a revolution in the way mathematics are used to evaluate performers in nearly every sport. So why are we still hearing about the medal count that treats a single medal presented to one person for two gymnastics routines the same as 18 medals presented to soccer players who endure a schedule of six games in 16 days?
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We started using calculators when I was in high school nearly a half-century ago, but they still were a luxury. Now everyone has one on their phones. Even if one is bad at math, the device does the hard part for us.
The International Olympic Committee does not present a single gold medal to the winning team in women’s basketball and ask them to rotate displaying it in their homes however they see fit. Each of the 12 players on the roster is presented a medal, theirs to keep. Because they earned it. There was not one gold medal presented in men’s field hockey. There were 16.
After the United States men won the basketball final against host France, everyone from Bam Adebayo to Derrick White was presented a gold medal – even Tyrese Haliburton, who joked on Twitter that he earned an ‘A’ on the class project to which he contributed little during Paris 2024.
It doesn’t make sense to ignore the number of athletes who leave the competition as medalists in favor of some second-grade accounting.
That’s why, in 2008, I invented the DeCourcy Podium Count: so you can learn the truth about what really happened in competition through each edition of the Summer Olympic Games. The DPC does not require an advanced degree in mathematical analysis, either. It simply establishes how many athletes actually were presented medals during ceremonies following their sports’ conclusion – and restores logic to the process.
And using that formula, there never was some heated competition between the United States and China for which had the most gold medals.
The United States produced 110 gold medals, according to my count. China had 68. The United States won 86 silver medals. China had 52. And the United States took home 94 bronze medals. China had 34.
Those totals are massive increases for the U.S. from three years ago at the Tokyo Games, from 99 golds and 252 total medals to 110 gold and 290 total.
Team competition devalued in medal standings
Team competition should not be devalued in the way the simplistic medal count (SMC) does. Team interaction is the essence of sport, which is why we find fundamentally individual sports including gymnastics (team competition) swimming and track & field (relays) working to find ways to introduce that element to their programs.
The Netherlands is listed as earning just 15 gold medals by the SMC. But the Dutch won team golds in rowing, track, men's team cycling, 3x3 men's and both men’s and women’s field hockey, bringing their DeCourcy Podium Count gold score to 61, more than any nation but the U.S. and China.
You think when their teams arrive back home, it’ll feel like they produced only 15 gold medalists? That’s not reality.
Australia goes from 18 golds to 26 golds -- because of excellent swimming relays -- and from and 53 total medals to 103. Great Britain's performance is much better captured using the DPC: 35 golds, 136 total medals, up from the simplistic counts of 14 golds and 65 total in large part due to excellence in team rowing events.
It’s the same with Spain, which departed Paris with 36 golds because of the victories by the men’s soccer and women’s water polo squads. That’s reduced to five golds in the simple count.
When the United States completed its victory over France in a sizzling final Saturday, star forward Kevin Durant was described as the first athlete in men’s basketball to win four gold medals. Because that’s how many he has. He was not labeled as someone who has participated in the acquisition of a single gold medal for his nation, or as someone who now owns .33 of a gold medal because he’s earned .083 four times.
You can see how dumb that is, right?
It’s time for the DeCourcy Podium Count to become the standard medal count for the Olympics.
Past time, honestly.