Saturday, February 15, 2014

Olympics: American Egalitarianism

(Drivebycuriosity) - It´s halftime in Sochi. While studying the current medal tables I made an interesting observation. The Americans are more egalitarian than the European.

Question: Has a gold medal the same value than a bronce medal?

If we believe the American Olympic medal tables the answer is yes (yahoo). At half time Russia is leading the table with 15 medals (gold, silver, bronce) followed by Netherlands & USA with each 14 medals. Norway with 13 medals is on place 4 and Germany with 12 medals is number 5.

All medals are the same?

The British newspaper "The Guardian" (theguardian) has a Olympic medal table structured in European style: Here Germany is leading with 7 gold medals, number 2 goes to Switzerland with 5 gold medals. Russia is on place 3 with 4 gold and 6 silver medals, Canada has place 4 with also 4 gold but 5 silver medals. Netherlands follows with 4 gold and 4 silver medals and than comes USA also with 4 gold medals but 3 silver medals.

So, the European (the German magazine "Der Spiegel" has the same table as the Guardian) recognize the values of a medal, but the Americans don´t.

All medals are equal - or aren`t they?.

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