Talk:All-time Olympic Games medal table/Archive 1

NOTE

Please do not add medals from the 2006 Torino games until a final tally has been made. This will make it easier to add in later. Thanks! --Jared 20:37, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

This page is not factually accurate!

The information on this page is NOT accurate; however, the information on both the Winter Olympics page and the Summer Olympics pages is accurate. It is important that the data be accurate as soon as possible! Someone, could you please total the data from the two above pages to get the real total medals for each country? Thanks --Jared 00:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The information has been updated. It is now accurate. --Jared 20:36, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

I have started a spreadsheet for a table, but it is too cumbersome to do the whole thing by myself. If a few people could work on it to get it complete, that would be great. The xls spreadsheet is uploaded to wikipedia as:

File:Olympic Medals2.xls

Thanks for helping! Remember to resave any changes you make back onto wikipedia!--Jared 13:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

---

Which is the rationale behind regrouping the medals? for exemple, why are medals won by "Australasia" team grouped with "Australia" while, for example, "Soviet Union" is different from "Russia"? What about "Germany" and "West Germany" (and, eventually, "East Germany")? gbnogkfs 14:13, 25 january 2006 (UT)

Why the previous message by myself was deleted? gbnogkfs 21:37, 2 february 2006 (UT)

USSR

If it's possible, I think the USSR medals should be redistributed to the country-state whatevers of each winner's origin. -VJ 18:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Besides the impracticality of sorting through 1111 Olympic medal wins to figure out which SSR each one belongs to, there is the additional problem of team sport medals, like hockey. Clearly, such medals can only be "redistributed" to the USSR as a whole, unless you are willing to count fractions of medals. I say let them stand as USSR medals.

The real problem is not USSR medals per se, but the fact that medals gained by some no-longer-existant-states (Australasia) have been given to one presently-existant country or the other, while medals gained by some other (USSR) have not. Gbnogkfs 22:28 10 february 2006 (UT)

I don't think medals should be redistrubuted at all. What sould be the rule anyway? Germany (FRG/GDR/GER) clearly shows this problem. You could account them all to Germany (GER) since it is the unified successor. Another possibility could be to add West-Germany (Federal Republic) and Germany (FRG/GER) since GER is clearly the successor of FRG (which is also hinted in the official IOC medal listings - "Federal Republic of Germany (1950-1990, "GER" since)". I think for combining statistics it is best to use those remarks within the official medal tables of the IOC - another example: Bohemia (TCH since 1920) - or just account them to the countries officially listed for historic reasons and correctnes. Breadbaker 21:04, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Math Problem

ATTENTION: There seems to be a problem: this page, denoting all-time winter olympic medals, and the summer page, show more medals than the combined list of olympic medals. I would like to bring this to the attention of someone who is willing to find out where the problem is; redistribute the medals (based too on the current games) on this page, the all time summer page, and the total medals page; and possibly create three new pages with this data because these pages are important and the way they are now (dis-similar formatting), it is hard to follow. Thank you for your time! —Jared 14:06, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why this page is up for deletion. I blatently stated in the talk section above that there is a problem with the accuracy of this and that it should be fixed. You shouldn't just go around and try to delete things if you havn't read the discussion page! —Jared 16:14, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Corrected Country Totals

Adding the figures from the Winter and Summer Olympics all-time medal charts, I was able to correct the country totals on the combined chart. Please feel free to double and triple check the totals as I did most of it earlier this morning. --Caponer 16:18, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much. It was important that this was done! --Jared 17:26, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Combining Summer and Winter Games Seems Ridiculous

Since there are relatively few Winter Olympics medals, adding Summer and Winter medals yields a huge bias towards the Summer games. The whole thing looks like a US-patriotic stunt and should be deleted.

Medalstats, no matter which way you slice it, the US is always going to fall within the top five of any all-time medals list. It is not a "US-patriotic stunt", the list is meant to show how many medals all nations have won since the conception of the Modern Olympic movement. Your statement lacks the acknowledgement of the fundamental fact that the Winter and Summer Games are one in the same, they are both Olympic Games administered by the IOC and many do not see them as separate entities. As I was correcting the total for each and every country represented on the list, I was improving the list so that readers could see the entirity of medals won by participating countries not usually thought of as having many medals. To disreguard this list because someone doesn't like the nation at the top isn't enough for it to be deleted. This talk page exists so that we can better organize this list, not simply throw it away. --Caponer 20:21, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Caponer, sure, as you say, the US is always going to fall within the top five of any all-time medals list. No problem with that! But your total count clearly is designed to make the US look twice as good as the nearest competitor, which obviously is totally ridiculous. The US all time medal standings tremendously profit from the US having been a single entity since the beginning of the Olympics.

It is well-known, however, that the USSR beat the US almost every time both nations participated (Total medal counts - Summer: USSR/GUS 7, USA 2; Winter: USSR 9, USA 0), but since the USSR started participating in 1952 and does not exist any more, the all time medal counts are heavily biased towards the US, making the US look much better than it deserves, just because it participated so frequently, and some US patriots just want to keep it this way.

I'd say: at the very least the all time tables should include the number of participations per country, to give a more meaningful picture.

Fimally, the original IOC charta forbade medal counts. Those who insist on counting medals cannot claim that one way of doing so has more formal justification than any other - none of them has any! In the end it all comes down to personal opinion, which should be reflected by Wikipedia. Medalstats

But if You Insist, Combine Medal Count Wins Too

All Summer and Winter Olympics combined: USSR/GUS won the total medal count 15 times, USA 13 times, Germany (East+West) 10 times

The USA won the gold count 16 times, USSR/GUS 15 times, Germany (East+West) 8 times

In case this page doesn't get deleted, I'd suggest something like this:

Medal count victories: Considering all Winter and Summer Olympics, the USSR/GUS won the total medal count 15 times (despite relatively few participations), the USA 13 times, Germany (East+West) 10 times, Norway 6 times. Greece, France, the UK, and Sweden won once each.

I wanted to take this opportunity to make a point that I and other contributors to this list have also been accused of Cold War bias against the former states of the Soviet bloc (USSR, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, etc). I wanted to stress that medal counts are based on the recognized participating individual Olympic Committees at the time of each Olympic Games (Winter and Summer). To carve up the Soviet Union like it never existed and give the medals to its descendant republics to better represent them would be unfair and uncalled for since they did not compete under their own recognized Olympic Committees during the time of the Soviet Union. West and East Germany each won medals under own individual Olympic Committees, so it would, again, be wrong to just add their numbers together like West and East Germany never competed separately. --Caponer 20:38, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

First of all: the original IOC charta forbade medal counts. Those who insist on counting medals cannot claim that one way of doing so has more formal justification than any other - none of them has any! In the end it all comes down to personal opinion, which should be reflected by Wikipedia.

Most major non-US media view Russia as the heir of the USSR / GUS medals, and Germany as the heir of East / West / Nazi Germany. Hence their total medal counts combine the contributions of the relevant former political entities / fragments. As an example I offer the all time medal count of the leading European weekly magazine Der Spiegel: http://www.spiegel.de/sport/wintersport/0,1518,398073,00.html And this is just one of many examples where it's being done this way. To summarize: since there is no official way of counting medals, any way is as good as any other. Therefore Wikipedia probably should respect or at least include the views of the hundreds of millions who do it this way. Medalstats

I totally agree with this. Even though these entites are currently either separated or combined as one, the medals should still be counted toward the nation that won them, whether it be a one shot municipality or not. Now I see where you're coming from when you say that since they are not active anymore, then they will move further and further down the list. Obviously this is true, and I don't know how to provide a solution to this. Maybe we could do a "medals per person" thing where you find a percentage based on the number of medals a country has and the population of that country. or something similar to that. Regardless, each nation that participated should be separate. Just think: If you were a West Germanian who participated in the olympics, would you want to be placed with the East Germanians just for sake of "it looks better on paper"?
--Jared ^[T]/_[C]\^[P:O]/_[@]\^[+] 21:30, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, Jared, obviously the Germans do that in a routine fashion: their total medal counts combine the contributions of former political fragments. At the risk of beating a dead horse I am pointing to the all time medal count of the leading European weekly magazine Der Spiegel: http://www.spiegel.de/sport/wintersport/0,1518,398073,00.html Many Russian and other magazines do similar things. And since there is no official way of counting medals, any way is as good as any other. Therefore Wikipedia probably should respect or at least include the views of the hundreds of millions who do it this way. Medalstats

I suggest adding another column to the table, which would give the time period(s) during which a given country participated in the Olympic Games. Kpalion 23:35, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with that suggestion. You should make mention of your proposal on Wikipedia:Olympic conventions and join the conversation! --Caponer 00:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

1906 Intercalated Games

I was curious as to what all interested parties in this list thought about the inclusion of the Intercalated Games in this all-time medals tally. When correcting the numbers based on the Winter and Summer Olympic Games all-time lists, I didn't realize that I was including the Intercalated Games, and being that they are not counted as official by the IOC, they shouldn't be included. I feel we should make an official decision on the matter of whether or not these medals should be included and then hold individual audits of the list to make sure the numbers add up correctly once the Intercalated medals have been omitted. --Caponer 20:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Medal Count Wins

After viewing Medalstats' excellent idea of adding the number of both total medal and gold medal wins for each Olympic Games, I thought we could also find a consensus on how and where to list these results. After going through the various Olympic Games medal tallies, I found the following results so I am open to a discussion on how to resolve the differences between our two findings. The medal count wins should conform to the overall all-time medals list. In keeping with the participating nations on the medals list, this is how it would read:

Total medal count victories in both the Winter and Summer Olympic Games are as follows: USSR with 14, USA with 13, Norway with 7, Germany with 4, Sweden with 2, and East Germany, France, Great Britain, Greece, Switzerland, and the 1992 United Team with 1.

Gold medal count victories in both the Winter and Summer Olympic Games are as follows: USA with 16, USSR with 13, Norway with 7, Germany with 3, and East Germany, Finland, France, Great Britain, Russia, Sweden, and the 1992 United Team with 1.

Finland and Norway tied in gold medals with 4 each at the 1924 Winter Olympics. Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland tied for medal count victory with 10 medals each in the 1948 Winter Olympics and Norway and Sweden tied in gold medals with 4 each. The United Team cannot technically be added with the USSR because Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania competed independently in the 1992 Summer Olympics and the United Team only consisted of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan at the 1992 Winter Olympics. --Caponer 22:11, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Go here to debate these conventions.
--Jared ^[T]/_[C]\^[P:O]/_[@]\^[+] 22:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

East Germany/West Germany/Germany

I would like to propose East/West/Germany be all combined in the tally. And it can have a * and in the buttom stating "Germany incudes East and West Germany medals as well" Now I saw this [[1]] - but the USSR and Germany situation are 2 totally different things. Where in USSR, the country split, so it makes sence to for the medals not to be merged together. But Germany is different, since the country united, not split. Chaldean 16:40, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Just thought I'd let you know, there is already a vote in progress on this subject here: Wikipedia:Olympic conventions#Medals of nations that have since split up (USSR) or united (West/East Germany) should be redistributed.--Josilot 16:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

"Medals of nations that have since split up (USSR) or united (West/East Germany) should be redistributed." <--- as I stated earlier, this is not right. The USSR and Germany situation are totally two different situations, and they should have 2 different polls. One split, the other united. Chaldean 19:40, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

As Josilot previously stated, this topic is being discussed in Wikipedia:Olympic conventions. If you feel it deserves its own sub-section within the Olympic conventions discussion, please do so accordingly. The point of the discussion is to come up with standard concensus on all conventions relating to Olympic Gamed medal tallies. --Caponer 02:46, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Second table needed

A table ordered by total medals is needed

No, not until the Wikipedia:Olympic conventions debate on table format has been resolved. Please help decide now! --Jared ^[T]/_[+] 00:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Olympic conventions

• All previous conversations and discussion up to February 22, 2006 have been archived. Current issues dealing with Olympic conventions and medal charts should be taken to Wikipedia:Olympic conventions. Until users and contributors reach a concensus on Olympic conventions, Wikipedia:Olympic conventions will serve as the appropriate venue for debates and discussions. I repeat, please post there until these matters are resolved. --Caponer 02:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Total Medal Count Turns Reality Upside Down: US Bias Makes US Look Better Than USSR etc.

Apparently a bunch of US patriots is determined to make the US look much better than it deserves. In fact, a recent total medal count makes the US look twice as good as the USSR and other rarely participating nations, exploiting the fact that the US has been a single political entity since the first Olympics in 1896, while the USSR never participated before 1952 and does not even exist any more. However, the USSR beat the US almost every time both nations participated (Winter total medal count victories: USSR vs USA 9:0, Summer: 6:2, Total: 15:2).

Actually: Summer games would be 7:2 If you include the Unified Team which is basically USSR under a different name.

This ridiculous US bias overturns conventional wisdom about the athletic prowess of nations. One preliminary way of improving this would be to insert an extra column listing how often the various political entities really took part in the games, to make clear that such tables are really comparing apples and oranges. In addition, there should be a separate table stating the number of medal count victories per nation in relation to how often they participated. Medalstats 10:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The paragraph on "US bias" is way too combative, and the overuse of bold makes it look like plain ranting. It doesn't even fit Wikipedia style since the "Criticism of misleading US bias" should be a subject heading but instead it's just a sentence fragment in bold. Then the "Don't delete this" in parentheses is jarring. You could tone the paragraph way down, but, even if you did that, this page isn't about documenting which nations are "better" than others: it's just about tallying the total medal count. That's it. And it's doing that. Anything comparisons you make between two nations is your own busineess. I don't see any reason to include a "Don't let the numbers fool you: the USSR totally rules the US" section. You could make another article where you compare those medal counts, and your ideas of making newer tables that take smaller, more related windows of data is of merit, but I'd suggest putting those on new articles and linking to them from here, but keep the "Total Olympics medal count" article to just that: the total Olympics medal count. These is just plain, raw data: no US bias went into compiling it. Paulb42 12:41, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

To Medalstats, I have taken it out again and expect not to see it again unless you come up with sources that are official and that back up your criticism. This is a list for Pete's sake and yes, the US is leading it, o well... it happens. This page is not the place to state a paragraph as you have written it. It was not designed to do anything and was not written by a "bunch of US patriots". I take great offense at your tone of language. If anyone has a bias it is you and I suggest you take it elsewhere.--Kalsermar 15:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Kalsermar, take it easy, I think Medalstats is right in principle, and something like what he's suggesting should be inserted, otherwise you really get a very misleading US POV picture. Them medals 08:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

What about dividing by the number of games the country has participated in? i.e. 'medals per each Olympic games' CoolGuy 14:19, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Support! I just came to this page "total olympics medal count" following a link from the winter olympics medal count, and decided to participate in the discussion. I believe this "total olympics medal count" is one of the most misleading examples of spin doctoring at Wikipedia. Obviously one must state how often sombody participated before you state how many medals they won. The idea of pairwise medal count scores is great. Wintermetal 21:34, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

We can fix this easily by adding a column to show the real strength of the nations. Please see my comments on Section 26 below. Wild Panda888 (talk) 08:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Another small issue of bias that Australian's are a little bit sensitive about when it comes to total tallies is the amount of population in each country. The reason for this is a country like ours never stands a chance at topping even an individual Olympics medal tally let alone the grand total despite participating in a large number of games. Yet for example at the Sydney Olympics we won roughly 1 medal per 300,000 inhabitants while the USA, who topped the tally won a medal per 3,000,000 inhabitants. I am not suggesting including the population of each country but perhaps a list of the population to medal ratios over time ... if someone actually has enough time to collate such a table. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Senor Freebie (talk • contribs) 16:18, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Contrary to the proclamations of Medalstats, the USSR was fielding "professional" athletes while the US and all other free nations were limited to fielding amateur athletes. This resulted in the USSR "looking much better than it deserves," to use his phraseology. This gave the USSR an unfair and "undeserved" advantage. Now that the United States and other free nations can field any athlete in the Olympics regardless of vocational status, it can be anticipated that athletes from state-run athletic programs (like that of the erstwhile USSR) will no longer enjoy an unfair advantage. China, however, will continue to rank highly in the medal count based upon a combination of factors, to include the infusion of generous amounts of money into its state-run programs, and its overwhelming population numbers. Moreover, I'd have to agree Kalsermar that Medalstats is the one who demonstrates a pronounced bias in his overtly anti-US ramblings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.172.42.227 (talk) 16:08, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Let's Create a Table Providing the Medal Count Scores For All Pairs of Nations

The ideal, much more informative and interesting solution would be a table with all nations listed on both dimensions, for each pair of nations providing the score: how often did one beat the other in the total medal count when both participated? For example, the score for USSR vs USA would be 15:2. The score for USA vs East Germany would be 4:7. But the table would also provide many other interesting scores such as France vs UK etc. Former fragments of nations that split up or united should be listed separately, but their combined scores should also be given, since many are interested in this type of information. Similar tables should be created for pure gold counts and for scores restricted to Summer and Winter Games. Anybody feeling up to the challenge? Medalstats 10:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Great idea, but a lot of work! Them medals 08:55, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Support! I just came to this page "total olympics medal count" following a link from the winter olympics medal count, and decided to participate in the discussion. I believe this "total olympics medal count" is one of the most misleading examples of spin doctoring at Wikipedia. Obviously one must state how often sombody participated before you state how many medals they won. The idea of pairwise medal count scores is great. Wintermetal 21:34, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

ZZX

Under the 1904 games a Mixed Team (ZZX) is listed as having a gold and silver, but they aren't on this chart, where should they go Mbisanz 06:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Currently, the Summer, Winter, and total Olympics medal count pages show the actual teams who won the mixed medals, rather than crediting them to ZZX. They don't give them to those countries' individual ranks, but rather to new entities which represent the various mixed teams, and lists which countries were involved in each. That is why there are things in the table such as "Australia/New Zealand" and "Ireland/United States." There is currently a propostion to use NOCs (National Olympic Committees) as the only criteria for medal tables. By doing this, Mixed Team (ZZX) would show up on the tables instead of things such as "Ireland/U.S." Olympic conventions/topics is the page where that propostion is located, so please check it out if you would like to comment. King nothing 2 05:27, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Alexandros

The numbers for the Greek gold medals don't seem to add up with those from the records of the individual games. There seems to be an 18-medal discrepancy.

Actually, there is a 55 medal discrepancy from my counting. I only came up with 103 medals total.

Deletion

_└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 15:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Restart deletion debate! This so-called debate concerning the deletion of the entire article was over way to fast, I think. Very few participated, apparently all from the US. Such bias seems unacceptable. Now that this topic has attracted the attention of a broader audience due to the finished Winter Games, the deletion debate must be re-opened again! Wintermetal 09:57, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Number Tallies Audit

Would anyone else be interested in assisting me with recounting each and every one of these totals, I corrected them using the all-time medal counts for the Winter and Summer Olympic Games, but they still do not seem to add up. With a couple of people we could have this done in no time! It needs a good audit. --Caponer 15:53, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Ceylon/Sri Lanka

Should Ceylon and Sri Lanka not be considered one and the same? Only the name and form of government of the country changed, for all other intents and purposes it is one, continuously existing, entity.--Kalsermar 18:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Criticism of bias section

It looks like to me that section has just as much of a POV as is claimed for the list. Maybe it'd be best to add a column that has the number of Olympics each country has participated in. That way you don't have the "this country dominates this other county" type of text but you'd still get a sense of the levels of participation. Rx StrangeLove 19:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

This is somewhat unecesarry table I agree, Basically, not all countries participates in every olympics, this gives advantage to the nation who participates in almost every olympic games like the United States. The Soviet Union did not even compete until 1952 and they are no longer after 1992. I am not being Anti-American but I really find this table bais if not just completely unecesarry. I really think the madal table per Olympic Games are the ones that are important.

Well, as long as this survived AFD, it's here for now so let's not edit war over it. It seems like a pretty basic type list to me, a list of total medals. If there are concerns about some countries being lower on the list because of a lower level participation it won't be fixed by singling only a few of them. To be fair we should be able to judge the effect this has on all countries. So I think a separate column listing the number of appearances each has will allow readers to judge for themselves. Rx StrangeLove 03:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree with RxStrangeLove. Any presentation of statistical data has an inherent framework bias, this one is no exception. Providing data to help understand that bias is far more helpful than providing no information whatsoever. --Joe Decker 17:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. But as long as there is no extra column with the number of participations per country, some toned-down form of the criticism of bias seems necessary. It can be removed as soon as the extra column is ready. Wintermetal 22:13, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

As long as there is no extra column, we should insert something like this (I edited the old version of the criticism):

Ongoing debate. Currently it is being debated (see discussion pages) whether this page should be deleted or whether the table below should at least include a column listing how often the various nations really participated in the Olympics. This would help to clarify why the USA is in the top spot although both the USSR and East Germany usually beat the USA whenever they participated (Winter total medal count: USSR vs USA 9:0, Summer: 6:2, Total: 15:2). It would also explain the unexpected low rankings of many other nations. This site including this note should not be deleted until the matter is resolved. Wintermetal 22:43, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I was going to copy this over to the talk page (from the article) but I see it's here already. Comments about the editing process don't belong on the main article page. Rx StrangeLove 22:55, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, this article as survived a deletion debate (there's a AFD notice up the page a little)...so the only debate is if another column should be added. To me it makes sense for another one to be added but if there isn't consensus for it then there's not much to be done I guess. An alternative wold be another list with the totals displayed another way. Whether that would get past a AFD nomination is anyones guess. Rx StrangeLove 23:10, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Restart deletion debate! This so-called debate concerning the deletion of the entire article was over way to fast, I think. Very few participated, apparently all from the US. Such bias seems unacceptable. Now that this topic has attracted the attention of a broader audience due to the finished Winter Games, it must be re-opened again! Wintermetal 09:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Ignore. If i understand english well enough the answer is in the title ..."total medal count". why you cant simply COUNT the (in real world existing) medals? Ok, it is because it gets Americans on the top and some of them can be really embarrasing with their overacted patriotism ... but then ignore "total medal count" page, not try to delete it. It is true to its title.

Lamka (Czecho)

Add a column of participations. The discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Sports_Olympics/Olympic_conventions#Total_Medal_Counts_Must_Include_Info_on_How_Often_Nations_Participated so far is in favor of this (14/10 currently). I think, that it should be included here, all the more that some states are defunct and ranking by medal count seems to be biased for such states. So far I added only years of USSR's participation. Cmapm 11:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if you count valid contributor's votes it is about 9/9 but the quality of the arguments (I say, but then again I may be biased) is heavily against the proposal. I'll state again, there is nothing biased about a simple addition of numbers. The years in brackets you did for the USSR would be fine and by looking at the years (1952-1988 in this case) readers can already see how often the country participated. Are you going to add these to all countries? --Kalsermar 20:50, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Unlike total medal count pages for SO/WO, this one has not direct links to any country's "participations page" at Olympics, which still makes me feel, that the column would be appropriate here, while probably would not in SO/WO pages. As for years for other countries, I am not going to add them, because I don't have enough information. However, for me, USSR's case is the most irritating the eyes, mostly due to its high rank, late Olympic entry and defunct nature. Perhaps they should also be necessary for other defunct states. So, I think, that either years would stay there and be added for other defunct states, or appropriate note(s) added. Cmapm 22:07, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I went and added years for W/E Germany's, I took them from IOC's medal page for Munich Olympics, please, correct me if I'm not right. Two more defunct teams - United Team of Germany and Unified Team have direct links to their "participations pages". Cmapm 22:18, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Re: 1906 Intercalated games

I would like to inform any person willing to do this that the 1906 intercalated games medals should be removed from this page and the summer medals page, per the consensus of the Wikipedia community, which can be viewed here. This shouldn't be a big project, and I would appreciate any person willing to do this. If you really feel helpful, mayber make sure that all of the numbers on these pages are correct. Thanks for your help! --Jared ^[T]/_[+] 21:14, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect data

These is obviously something wrong with the data on the 3 totals pages, as I was just checking the US totals to see if they add up and they don't: 218+2190=2408, not 2539. And the issue of whether or not someone has taken out the 1906 intercalated games is still a factor. I don't want to list this as unfactual information, but I might eventually have to so that someone will take up the job of retallying the medals. Its a big job, so I would appreciate anyone who would do it, or atleast part of it. Thanks. --J@red ^[T]/_[+] 19:52, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Adding up the toals for the USA on the individual medalcount pages for each olympics minus the 1906 games yields 2437 total medals. InformationPlease.com agrees with this.--Kalsermar 20:23, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so maybe just the total counts need to be re-adjusted. If all of the smaller tables are right, then the problem is probably that there are adding mistakes, inclusion of the 1906 games, etc. I don't know... --J@red ^[T]/_[+] 21:27, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I have gone through all the medal tables from olympic.org, matched them to the tables we have on Wikipedia, and adjusted this page to match the totals. They should all add up cleanly now. Andrwsc 21:09, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, well I just added them up myself, using a pretty foolproof method, and got different totals for the USA Summer medals. I'm pretty sure mine are right because I copy and pasted the entire table for each year (using the IOC site's tables), and then used a spreadsheet function to add all of the USA numbers. I got 896 golds, 692 silvers, and 603 bronzes (Summer Olympics). King nothing 2 01:04, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

That's exactly the process I used, so one of us must have cut&pasted wrong! :) I've updated United States at the Summer Olympics to show all the medal totals from my spreadsheet, so please let me know if you see the discrepancies. I did see a couple of mismatches in Wikipedia when I was re-checking the US totals. The top 10 table at 1900 Summer Olympics did not match the full table at 1900 Summer Olympics medal count, and ditto for 2004 Summer Olympics and 2004 Summer Olympics medal count. They all match the IOC totals now -- as far as I can tell! Andrwsc 04:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Your 1904 numbers seem to be wrong (as do Wikipedia's). King nothing 2 05:02, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, so they are! I wonder if the table at the IOC website was updated recently, because that's where I got the data for my spreadsheet a few weeks ago. I shall update the appropriate Wikipedia pages (including the 1904 pages). Thanks! Andrwsc 05:32, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

In comparison with the "Germany at the Winter Olympics"-table, GER has 9 instead of 8 participations (23 instead of 22 in total) and FRG 6 instead of 7 (11 instead of 12 in total). In 1952, East Germany didn't take part, but the code was "GER". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.182.244.65 (talk) 00:47, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Hong Kong

Well, i think in light of the edit war we see regarding the HK entry I'll best put in my 2 cents before making any changes. I think according to the convention that's been established is that there is one entry per NOC. Now, on the table it lists "Hong Kong, China" and this is the name it use on placards only since the 2000 Olympics. In 1996 it was simply just "Hong Kong". In my opinion they are two distinct NOCs and deserves two separate entries with two different flags. One gold medal for "Hong Kong" and one silver medal for "Hong Kong, China". So this is what i'm proposing to clarify the fact that the medals were won under different flags and political administrations. --Kvasir 09:32, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I support this move for this special case.--Kalsermar 13:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this is an extremely bad idea. The NOC known as HKG (Amateur Sports Federation & Olympic Committee of Hong Kong) remained the same through the transition of Hong Kong but merely changed their name (see IOC site and HKG site).

I think the wrong way to resolve POV edit wars is to submit and accept inaccurate data. I think this idea opens up a huge can of worms, paving the way for editors with German or Russian POV to start combining totals of FRG, GDR, EUA and GER or URS, EUN and RUS respectively, to name a couple of concrete examples. Take a look at the excessive and out of context detail that ended up in Ice hockey at the Olympic Games because of a similar edit war.

I think one problem on the Wikipedia Olympic pages right now is that we don't do a good job explaining the differences between countries and NOCs. One solution to the edit war here might be to add a column to this table to identify the NOC (i.e. HKG) for each row and not just use the current name designation. Also, I am in the middle of a re-write of List of IOC country codes which will list each of the designations used for each code. I have also been planning on writing an article to help explain various situations (perhaps called National participation in the Olympic Games).

In the meantime, I strongly suggest that this recent change for HKG is reverted. Andrwsc 21:07, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I did let well over 3 months passed since the last comment presented itself regarding the HKG issue. It would be silly to revert changes every time a different opinion comes along, THEN will we have edit wars. I suggest a vote or more discussion of some sort to come to a conclusion.

I do think the handover was more than just a simple name change. And there is no inaccurate data presented in the most recent edits. If anything, combining the counts is misleading, as if combining East German and West German count under the Unified German team. I would like to point out the current chart reflects clearly of the changes pre- and post- unification with the 4 German nations' entries in the table. This is not dissimilar to the case in the HKG handover. --Kvasir 00:31, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see the talk page discussion — I just noticed the edit history on the article, and saw your changes from a few days ago. I agree that more discussion is probably needed. Consider my comments the second or third bit of feedback on this issue.

As for the "name change", I was referring to the NOC, not Hong Kong itself. Reading their website leads me to believe that the NOC had full continuity while the territory switched jurisdiction. They consider themselves now to be the same organization that was founded in 1950. This is why I think it is quite unlike other situations, such as when GDR and FRG had independent NOCs, independent teams, etc., and this is why I believe it makes perfect sense to include the 1996 medal and the 2004 medal as both won by athletes from the same NOC. Andrwsc 01:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Total number of medals

suggestion: I feel it would be right that there be a ranking by total number of medals (gold and silver and bronze) and not just by gold. Perhaps there could be two rankings alongside each other, as its not really only the gold that counts. Daniel Montin 11:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Traditionally, the ranking is always making by gold and this is the right, the other medals count in case of equality. Sthenel 01:14, 7 January 2007

Not sure what you mean by "this is the right". I agree with Daniel Montin. If gold is the primary sorting key that everyone's happy with, we should explicitly point this out in the preamble. Otherwise, it looks at first glance that, for example, Japan has won more medals in total than Australia, when in fact they've won fewer. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:25, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

In the german article, the medals from east and west Germany are count together. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.186.50.33 (talk) 04:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Why Summer and Winter medals together?

I think that there should be two separated lists, one of the total medals by country for the Summer Olympic Games and another one for the Winter Olympic Games. It's the first time I see a table like this. The Summer Olympic Games are the most famous and someone who would like to get informed about these, see a mixed list instead, which gives a wrong idea to some extent about the Summer Olympic Games. Sthenel 01:29, 7 January 2007

Saarland 1952?

The Saarland participated 1952 in Helsinki under the code of "SAA", it won no medals tho. Should it be added? Saar_at_the_1952_Summer_Olympics —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.169.173.166 (talk • contribs)

None of the nations who have never won any medals appear on this list. Why should Saarland be the lone exception? Andrwsc 14:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

How about Olympic spirit? In German, its "Dabeisein ist alles" (participation is everything). Of course it not only applies to Saarland, but to all members of the Olympic family. Eddie the Eagle, Jamaica bobsleigh etc. won no medal but sympathies. There are about 200 countries in the world, so the list with 130 entries would not grow that much, as I doubt Vatican will ever take part. There is a Category:Nations at the Olympics, but no list it seems. -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       20:30, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, we already have a couple of articles that list all nations at the Olympics - List of countries first participation in the Summer Olympic Games and even List of IOC country codes. This article is about medal counts, so it seems pointless to duplicate the list of all nations again. There are 230 unique NOCs that have competed in the Games (current and past), so this list would almost double in size, with a 98-way tie for 133rd. That seems rather useless and redundant to me. Andrwsc 20:41, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

One article covering "All-time Olympics medal counts"

As most disclaimers and explanations affect all three counts, I suggest to

• merge the Summer Olympics medal count and Winter Olympics medal count into this article
• move this article to All-time Olympics medal counts

BTW, http://olympiastatistik.de/ is another statistics source, in German. Does include EUA results in GER [2], and ranks Germany 3rd [3] combined with results of separate FRG and GDR teams.

Thanks for the merger. I've changed the intro wording, and added combinations of German results, as compiled and published by other sources. Other nations can be included in similar fashion, additional lines should not hurt anybody. -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       01:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

As next steps, I suggest

• move to All-time Olympic medal counts, as total should refer to the addition of all-time Summer&Winter
• adding also the total G/S/B columns accordinly
• removal of the ordinals (?) in column 1, as it is pointless to have some countries ranked at least 3 ranks lower as Germany appears 4 times in the "nation" column, and other countries also more than once.
• speaking of that, "nation" is a bad choice as Mixed team, United team, and IOP are no nations. Team name is more appropriate
• listing the four Germany entries directly next to each other, for a better overview and less messy footnotes, and same for other related teams, as done in es:Medallero_de_los_Juegos_Olímpicos
• additional row for added results per nation, namely Germany and Russia. Even the Poles did that on their table, despite having had some "issues" with their neighbors. On the other hand, they experienced partitions and denial of identity. -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       02:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Feedback on each suggestion:

• The word "Total" expresses the same idea as "All-time" - why change?
• There is not enough room to add three more columns. I tried that.
• I can remove the rankings, but I would also re-sort alphabetically in that case. Also, please tone down the German POV on your comments - please think of all nations with respect to your suggestions.
• We use "Nation" extensively (i.e. at least several hundred instances), so this article should not be different. Also, nation doesn't equate to sovereignty, so the term is appropriate here. Similar debates have been held on many other lists, and consensus is that "nation" is a suitable term. However, I think you have a point about ZZX. It's more of a "book-keeping" notation than a real team, so it ought to be unranked.
• As I mentioned, I will address the "multiple nation" problem for all instances. Again, please refrain from singling out Germany.
• I strongly disagree with the table on es.wiki. They attribute all Soviet medals to Russia. That must be a slap in the face for fans of Ivan Klementjev, to see his gold in 1998 going to Russia instead of Latvia. Similarly, I'm sure that New Zealanders would be pissed to see Harry Kerr's medal for Australasia at the 1908 Summer Olympics was tallied for Australia, especially since Kerr was the first ever New Zealander to win an Olympic medal.

Also note that if we try to make any fancy additions to the table, then it cannot be sortable. The restrictions on sortable tables preclude anything other than very simple row ordering, as is now shown.

I have some time today to tackle the "multiple nation" problem, so let me work on that first before judging it too harshly. I'm almost tempted to give up completely and nominate this whole mess for deletion on the basis of original research, but I'll try first to see if an NPOV, non-OR table can be created. Andrwsc 03:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Why keep at "total" when "all-time" describes the 100+ year span better? Same with "nation", why stick to this "most influential doctrines in history" that "includes the dead as full members" and has other connotations, when "team" is straightforward and neutral? The width of the table can be reduced by deleting the first column, and shortening the widest names of "nations" - are IOP/EUA/EUN nations or are these rather "book-keeping" notations anyway? And yes, I single out Germany, not only because I am German and thus know more about Germany than other nations, but also because Germany is different from former states that split up, or nations that remain divided, as Germany was and is united. Only at 3 Summer Olympics ('72, '76, '88) two different sets of flag and anthem were used simultaneously, while we already had 4 Summer Olympics since reunification, the 5th coming up. Besides, you strongly misquote the es.wiki table which has additional, informal lines named "total", no face slapping or pissing involved - except that you defend "nation" a few lines above, making Klementjevs part of "Soviet nation" rather than "Soviet team". Regarding non-Russians winning medals for the USSR, I think the nations involved should present their cases (and sources), which then can be used for additional lines, footnotes etc. Again, the issue is more simple in Germany, all Ex-East Germans were and are Germans, I'm not aware of any athlete (or other) leaving the crumbling GDR in order to escape "surrender to the class enemy" - even the Honeckers left only in 1991. Regarding the OR trap the current version is stuck in deeply, this can be rectified if additional lines with added results are included, according to sources like CNN, Spiegel etc.. These additional lines can be sorted as any other. Related teams should show up next to each other by default, have the same background colors, and alphabetical sorting can be restored with naming like "Korea (South)", "Russia (in USSR)" etc. Deletion is pointless as the all-time counts are notable, they will come up in 2008, for sure, so better be safe than sorry. -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       22:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

How do I misquote the es.wiki table? It adds URS + RUS + EUN together to create a subtotal, which implies that all URS and EUN medals were won by Russians. It adds ANZ + AUS together, which implies that all the ANZ medals were won by Australians. Both are clearly wrong. Andrwsc 22:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

You know, I give up. I've spent countless hours on this article, including many hours in the past day working on an extensive re-write, yet I believe all this effort will be in vain. I am going to nominate this article for deletion. Andrwsc 22:50, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Numbers not adding up

Totals 4207 4170 4422 12799 782 781 772 2335 15134

How come the numbers of Gold/Silver/Bronze are unequal? Of course there were some medals shared for two athletes/teams now and then, and maybe some were not handed out after DQ, but so often? Compared to 4207 Gold, 37 Silver less, and 215 Bronze more? -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       02:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that really did happen quite a bit. For example, check out Sailing at the 1920 Summer Olympics, or almost every gymnastics page (lots of ties). It happened a lot in athletics jumping events somewhat regularly too. As for the extra bronzes, many combat sports (esp. boxing) handed out two bronze to the semi-final losers, rather than scheduling a bronze medal match between two recently defeated fighters. Andrwsc 02:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that should become a footnote. Okay, high jumps can end in ties, and making people fight for a bronze and "wood" is not very noble either. With such "contests", where several Gold medals were handed out to "friends" just for showing up and parading their yachts without competition, we should really be less anal about adding total counts or compiling "proper" rankings. The selection of contests was very "odd" sometimes, with some "home field advantage", like the single gymnastic event in 1900.-- Matthead ^discuß!     O       03:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Chinese Taipei and Republic of China

The footnote on Chinese Taipei's medal count says it includes the medals won by the Republic of China, yet there's another entry for Republic of China at 108. Another thing, what should the medals won by the ROC in the 1930s be accounted to? Should it be China or Taiwan (i.e. Chinese Taipei)? Chanheigeorge 03:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a mistake and I'll fix that (prob. tomorrow). There were no medals won by ROC in the 30s (they won one in 1960 and another in 1968 before TPE was used), so that point is moot. Andrwsc 04:37, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Right, I should have known that. On another note, please vote here for renaming the following category: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_October_5#Category:Olympic_medalists_for_Great_Britain_and_Northern_Ireland. Chanheigeorge 06:01, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The table needs three more columns

If we're going to sort by combined gold, then combined silver, then combined bronze, we certainly should display those three columns. Chanheigeorge 20:14, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I tried that, but it doesn't work well for 1024x768 displays, which is the minimum screen size we ought to design Wiki tables for. I will try some other ways to do this. Andrwsc 20:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

If the table becomes too wide, maybe it's worth considering splitting into three tables, combined, summer and winter. This way we can also get the individual ranks of the countries in the Summer and Winter Games. For example, to know how many nations have won a medal in the Winter Games, now I have to do a sort and then manually count. Another thing, I know somebody has mentioned this, but "Total Olympics medal count" just sounds awkward. "All-time Olympics medal count" sounds much better. Chanheigeorge 04:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, we used to have three big tables (albeit in three different articles), but that was not as useful and more difficult to maintain. I'm working on an XGA computer now, so I might try to fit the three extra columns in and see how it might look. Andrwsc 04:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, having three tables in three different articles is difficult to maintain, but having them in the same article, with all the footnotes at one place, should be okay. I don't see what having summer and winter numbers side-by-side in a table brings to the table (excuse the pun), it's not as if we're often comparing a country's summer and winter medals total. Right now, aesthetically the table still doesn't look good, you definitely need some sort of visual aid to distinguish where the summer numbers end and the winter numbers begin. And as for changing the table numbers, we have to do that, what, once every two years? Chanheigeorge 04:43, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Another thing, shouldn't the link of Germany (EUN) direct to the United Team of Germany? Seems like a better choice than directing to Germany at the Olympics. Chanheigeorge 20:20, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

That's probably a good idea for this page, but the standard template will still produce just "Germany" as per discussion on WP:OLY. Andrwsc 20:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Art competitions

Why in the medal of the Art competitions do not you count?--Soregashi 08:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

They are not included in any of the medal tables that the IOC maintains. Andrwsc 16:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Attendance

This list is fantastic, but it seems incomplete. Would it be possible to add an extra column for the number of games that a country attended? It seems inadequate comparing all the countries of the world without some kind of contrast. Regards, Bogdan ^що? 00:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There is already a parallel article for that, at List of countries' first participation in the Summer Olympic Games. I've been thinking of expanding that list significantly to better show all appearances, not just the first ones. It would also be the right place to show the changes as certain nations changed over the years (URS, YUG, etc.). I'm reluctant to add more columns to this table as it is already stretching the limits for XGA-sized displays. Andrwsc (talk) 00:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Nations that split and recombined etc.

I think that we could at least put an unranked placeholder on this list for "Germany" (Germany+East Germany+West Germany+United Germany), and possibly one for Former USSR, and any other similar cases. Without these the list is somewhat misleading. This would be similar to what we do on economic/population lists for supranational entities like the EU. Savidan 22:15, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we should omit the rank column altogether? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:48, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

About a year ago, I had suggested removing the first column, as there is no benefit in assigning a misleading rank. For quick overview, related teams (eg. TCH, CZE, BOH) should appear next to each other in the default view, under an additional placeholder (e.g. Czechs (TCH+CZE+BOH)) with accumulated numbers even though some TCH medals surely had been won by Slovaks (which sooner or later will be sorted out in hindsight even for team medals, I guess). That would put the "alltime" Russians (URS+RUS) ahead of Germans again, too, as in most lists in the media (incl. German ones). A single click then can sort the list according to the preferred criterion. -- Matthead  Discuß   23:19, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I reaffirm my strong objection to any "double counting" by placing additional rows in the table. You simply cannot combine URS+RUS, TCH+CZE, etc. and remain NPOV and free of original research. The most we should do along those lines is document how other organizations have created similar combined total tables in this article (with references etc.), as a good encyclopedia should do. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:58, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

A good encyclopaedia doesn't produce false data. Germany united and this is a fact of life. Opposite cases are disollutions like USSR, TCH, YUG, etc. In these cases we cannot add-up the numbers to a single nation (NOC). In best case we can form a separate list which would combine all results of all the previous soviet socialist republics and thus calculate the USSR strength today (but not Russian strength). This could be a small list added on the bottom of this article which poits to an imaginary rank in the main table (where would USSR be if still in existance, where would TCH, YUG and others be). Germany should be on both of those lists (on the first list as a unranked placeholder and on the second list with the rank it has as a combined East, West, United Germany and current GER. -- Imbris (talk) 00:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

This article has always been problematic. The fact is there are no reliable sources that agree on the totals, as they all seem to add up differently. The data here is the best attempt to create an accurate list that is actively maintained when totals change (like the medals from 2000 recently stripped). As such, it might stray into original research territory. We can choose to delete the article for OR reasons, or we can try to consolidate all the mis-matched medal totals into our best effort for accuracry. And has been pointed out countless times, you cannot add together RUS and URS (for example), without offending the Latvians, Ukrainians, etc. whose countrymen won individual medals for URS. Also, you cannot combine FRG and GDR as those were two independent teams at the same Games, and therefore, had twice as many entries as other NOCs on many occasions. I really wish the IOC had decided to retroactively use GER for all of GER, FRG, and EUA, as (in my opinion), they should all be combined. But my opinion doesn't count, and we can't make up different "rules" on a NOC-by-NOC basis. I am convinced that the most NPOV method of combination is by NOC (and code). There is a table in the Germany at the Summer Olympics article, for example, that shows the four individual totals (GER, FRG, GDR, EUA) and a combined total, and I think that article (alone) is the best place to keep the combined totals. It can convey, in prose text, an explanation of the situation so much better than a row in this table, no matter how well it is footnoted, can ever do. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 01:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

We can add East and West Germany and other GER and EUA because all of those athletes made through qualifications. There are plenty of proofs for that fact, like when in table tennis CHN plays against the other CHN. -- Imbris (talk) 01:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

When a Chinese athlete competes against another Chinese athlete, they are serving under the same flag, for the same country. When East and West Germany competed, they were rival countries. I don't know how you could see things otherwise. I have no objection to considering pre-war Germany, West Germany and post-1990 Germany to be the same country, but East Germany must be kept separate. The fact that it is now a part of the Federal Republic of Germany in no way erases the fact that it was a separate country from 1949-1990 (and from 1968 onward, sent its own Olympic teams). To claim otherwise is akin to saying that the Republic of Texas never existed because Texas is now a U.S. state.Funnyhat (talk) 04:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Should Minimise Confusion (and Bias) - by Ranking the Relative Strength of Countries

The current table is very confusing (and possibly biased). Many weak Olympics nations are artificially made to appear strong in this table (either knowingly or unknowingly).

You can fix this easily by adding a column to show the Relative Strength of the nation (possibly next to the 'Rank' column).

The relative strength of nations can be calculated easily by dividing the total number of medals for that nation by the number of games participated by that nation.

That is :

$RelativeStrength=MedalTotal/GameParticipation$

Would someone like to fix this?

Wild Panda888 (talk) 08:31, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a bad idea to introduce a new "statistic" like this, per WP:No original research, but I think a column that simply totals the number of appearances would be uncontroversial and useful. There would be room for this if we remove the rank column. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 04:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Although the formula is clearly commonsense, I do take your point that it would still technically speaking be classified as 'original research'. In any case, would you please add in that column you suggested above so as to minimize confusion. Wild Panda888 (talk) 13:25, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to add that the equation isn't quite so common sense as it seems. The total numbers of medals awarded per games has changed over time, so simply dividing medals by number of games participated in (as suggested above) devalues or penalizes participation in earlier games with fewer competitions or awarded medals. The best such strength ranking, for instance, might be an average of a team's percentage of total medals won in each Olympic games in which it has participated, but such a thing would clearly be WP:No original research.CrazyPaco (talk) 21:39, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I can try to work on an alternate version that we can discuss before the end of the 2008 Games when this page will be next updated. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Ranking

The article says: "Default rank by combined Gold medals won, then combined Silver medals, then combined Bronze medals", but this is not how they are ranked in the article, they are just ranked by total number of medals. Isn't this wrong? MookieZ (talk) 15:25, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, it is fixed now. MookieZ (talk) 18:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

rank

why is Britain 6th when a all time medal count makes them 4thFW07 (talk) 16:46, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

==

What the hell , that german number is wrong and its a big overestimate , GERMANS ( not counting DDR ) had won about 600 TOTAL medals in olympic games both winter and summer not 1500, who the hell did write that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by FiReFTW (talk • contribs) 02:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Germany and combined medals

I see someone has went ahead and combined Germany's totals, including West and East Germany despite the fact that these were two different countries competing against each other. But I'm not going to get into that because it has been debated over and over and over again. If this is going to stand with Germany, then we ought to combine the totals for all of the former Communist countries. Someone suggested we combine the table the way they did it in the Spanish article. I went and looked and it does seem like a solution that might calm everybody down. --71.112.145.102 (talk) 03:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

There is a difference: Germany is one country again. It is fully responsible for all the former German fragments. Your former communist countries, however, are many. Olympicdreams (talk) 21:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Updates during 2008 Games

I have reverted back to the pre-2008 Games version, as the common convention on this Wikipedia is to update all-time sports statistics pages at the end of the season in progress, and this is a similar situation. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 04:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Scaling

As much as this will hurt the US sacrosanct national pride, the ranking on medal count only makes sense if it is scaled by the population of the country. Indeed, the bigger the nation, the bigger the pool from which to find champions, and thus the greater the number of medals. For example, if we were to create a very large country called "Earth" comprising 100% of the world population, then the medal count would be the largest. But this data would be meaningless unless it were scaled. Example : France has about 4 times less medals than the US but a population 5 times smaller. Thus is has a higher rank. In other words, if you sample 100 random US citizens and a 100 random French citizens, you're more likely to find an olympic champion in the 2nd batch. That's a statistical fact. It should be mentioned. I will soon undertake the task of doing so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.45.216.5 (talk) 08:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

There have been previous articles with this kind of WP:Original research, but all have been deleted. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 08:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

next point is that the relation of population changed over time - so such a list would be nonesense anyway. Then you could do a list of the relation of medals to richness, average feeding or even education - all facts which are at least as influential as the number of population. (Well and thats my opinion - very interesting to know would be the standard of chemistry in a Country) - Well - thats nonesense. The only question could be - need we such a list at all. Yes - because many people want this information. But if you are from a country which has not won as many medals you could take comfort in the fact that of course the Americans etc. are not superhumans - medal succes is a function of development of a state, national sport support (includes promotion of sport but of course also "perfect" doping, which is not detectable) ... 195.243.51.34 (talk) 11:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Germany

Germany´s medals must be listed combined. In difference to countries like the Soviet Union all the German medal winners came from the same country, they were all Germans. Germany was only political divided. GER today is the FRG and the GDR together, so it´s only absolutely fair to make the addition of the medals. It cannot be understood why they are diffently listed, because they were all Germans who won all these medals in these important 40 years of olympic history. Of course they were legally different countries and called so by the IOC but the cold war is over and we finally have the chance to count them together without political conflicts. This even because of the fact that Germany was not allowed to send teams to Olympic games after the World Wars and had not the chance to participate and get medals like many other countries. In complete difference to that Russia now is not the former Soviet Union, that consisted of many different states. So it cannot be said that the medals of Soviet Union are the medals of Russia, because it was bigger before 1991. Germany was - in difference - not bigger before 1989, it was only political divided. Serbia and Yugoslavia is the same situation like Russia and USSR. A statement from Paris, France. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.169.119.180 (talk) 17:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Please read all the previous discussions we've had. There were two German teams for many years, and it would be inappropriate to combine their totals because they usually had twice as many entries in the same event as other NOCs had. It would be comparing apples to oranges. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:39, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

As you know the athletes from both German NOCs achieved the standards for the Olympic games and that it did not depend on the fact that there was one or two NOCs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.169.119.180 (talk) 18:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Because "they were all Germans"? Wait, you're actually arguing that we combine medals based on ethnicity? That makes absolutely no sense because every country is multi-ethnic, such as the U.S. Or do you mean their nationality was German? Again, this makes no sense; East and West were two politically very different countries opposing each other. Their nationality was East German or West German; there was no unified Germany for them to compete under a single flag. If you combine Germany then you must combine Russia and the USSR as well, which is the successor state. We already combined Russian Empire and Russian Federation together, but we cannot combine the USSR and Russia, despite the fact the the USSR occupied the exact same territories of the Russian Empire and that all of the Soviet states and its people were former colonies and citizens of the Russian Empire? Your arguments make no sense. --71.112.145.102 (talk) 19:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

FRG and GDR were two German states on the German territory of the former German state consisting of the German people. It is simply not correct to split them of giving the suggestion that in 40 years Germany did not win an single medal or count away the perfomances given by the Germans in East Germany. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.169.119.180 (talk) 19:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Soviet Union was the former Russian Empire occupying the same Russian territory consisting of the Russian people. Your argument still makes no sense. --71.112.145.102 (talk) 19:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course it does: Russian Empire and Soviet Union were suppressing different states and people. It is a great difference between Germany and the former Soviet Union. Maybe you in Washington near Seattle cannot understand the situation in European countries: It is hard for a Georgian if you say to him that the medals won by Georgian athletes in times of Soviet Union are given to Russia in our list. But the German state does not suppress its people, it is only the combination of two German states who´s people want to be together and want to be seen as a unity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.169.119.181 (talk) 19:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

That isn't an argument, that is a call for sympathy, but unfortunately that won't do. We have to follow consistency here. The only reason the Soviet Union and Russian Empire are not combined in total is because they competed under a different NOC. If we give Germany an exception that will set a precedent we don't need to go down. We cannot combine East and West Germany for that reason. By the way, you have no idea about my situation (I'm an immigrant from the former USSR living in U.S.) so please refrain from the "you have no idea" speech. --71.112.145.102 (talk) 19:40, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You completely miss my point, and that fact that you continue to argue on the basis of nationalism and/or ethnicity speaks volumes about your motivation. The point is that in many events, the number of entries is limited per NOC. Obviously, team events (football, etc.) have a single team per NOC, and many individual sports have a limit of one or two entries. Since there were two German teams, they had double the opportunity to win a medal compared to any other NOC, and that is why it is an unequal comparison. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It is not an unequal comparison, because in sport events where only one team per NOC was allowed they had also double the chance to kick each other out and the players were split of into two teams - in footbal e. g. this is a terrible situation when the best players of a team are devided into different teams. And in events with single athletes the german athletes reached the performances, so it did not matter if the NOC of FRG or GDR sent them, the would have won either way and were better as the athletes from other countries. - Give the Germans finally the unity that they appertain to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.169.119.181 (talk) 20:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I do absolutely agree with the previous user. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.87.224.97 (talk) 07:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

So, and why isn't United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and UK of GB and Norther Ireland divided? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.12.55.241 (talk) 16:33, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Because the Great Britain team was always organized by the same National Olympic Committee, unlike FRG and GDR, which were two distinct NOCs. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 00:24, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

That's not correct: The NOC of Germany founded 1949 was recognized by the IOC for Germany as a whole. I don't see any reason why you would divide GER and EUA, this is just ridiculous! Furthermore, the official policy of the NOC of Germany was to represent Germany as a whole and after the Reunification the athletes of the GDR joined the NOC of Germany, so there is a continuance starting in 1949 with the foundation of the NOC for whole Germany up to 2006. And the third point is that the GDR joined the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990(maybe you've heard of it?), This makes the Federal Republic of Germany the official and legal successor of the German Democratic Republic, just as the Federal Republic was the legal successor of the Deutsches Reich. It is just ridiculous to see that some try to divide Germany into 4 (!) entities, ignoring the legal and polital facts! But this is a thing that we know from some wiki-knowledge-oligarchs! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.12.15.112 (talk) 08:15, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not dividing GER and EUA; the IOC is. I'll be honest, and I've stated this before, that I really don't understand why the IOC decided that a new code was needed for the united Germany team. I would certainly be happier if they had simply used GER for those six Games. I can also understand if they decided to use GER instead of FRG for West Germany, but they didn't do that either. But it is what it is. Hey, if there is:

1. strong enough consensus here to combine GER, FRG, and EUA together, and
2. we can do that in an NPOV manner, and
3. it doesn't lead to combinations like URS+RUS, TCH+CZE etc.,

then we could move ahead along those lines. However, if you are suggesting that we combine the results for the teams organized by the Nationales Olympisches Komitee For Deutschland with the results for the teams organized by the Nationales Olympisches Komitee Der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik then I would strongly object. Two different NOCs, two different teams. I agree with you that four lines in this table is goofy, but there cannot be less than two. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:43, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

”I'm' not dividing GER and EUA; the IOC is.”

The IOC isn't officially supporting a total Olympic medal count, so if the IOC is setting the standard for this type of wiki entry, then this article should be deleted. I think the previous user (German NOC, legal succession) perfectly summarized the arguments brought forward by other users before (in more and less eloquent and respectful manner). The current situation is more confusing than informative. And to quote the wiki entry of Germany at the Summer Olympics: "West Germany used the code GER at the Games from 1968 to 1976, although its athletes' participation is now coded as FRG by the IOC, a code introduced in 1980." So, the IOC frequently shuffled through country code variations for whatever reasons, but I doubt they were doing so to set a gold standard for all time medal counts.

Concerning 3.: IMHO It's a difference whether a group of people seek independence or reunification. So I don't see Germany serving as a precedence for your examples.

Anyway, I fully support your suggestion to merge GER, FRG and EUA. This will also have the advantage that you'll only have to deal with people wanting to merge GER and GDR medals in the future. ;-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.53.104.211 (talk) 01:05, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

That's not my suggestion—I was speculating the "terms" under which this could possibly happen if there was consensus to do so. I think your comment about article deletion is not unreasonable. In order of preference, I would support:

1. keep as is
2. delete the whole thing
3. merge EUA and GER only
4. merge EUA, GER, and FRG

— Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 02:42, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

If you want a second opinion, I think you make sense. The table should be organized along the same lines as the IOC/NOC's have it. Anything else would be synthesis. RxS (talk) 02:57, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's precisely the rationale we've been using all along. I really wish the IOC would help us out and get rid of EUA and FRG from their database... — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 04:26, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

List it like the Spanish do. This is the best solution and would calm down everybody: You will like the diffenrence between the NOCs and we can be calm because the German teams stand together and we see how many medals they've won together and divided. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.87.224.97 (talk) 08:03, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

As noted above: this is not the best, because it merges the NOCs against the authoritative IOC source. Would you like to merge the Saarland with Germany in similar tables that list all countries? We have to choose some standard, and there's no better standard than the top authority on the Olympics. Nyttend (talk) 13:43, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

"authoritative IOC source" - There is no authoritative IOC source! As the IOC has no standard for counting "all time tables" we have to find an own way!

By the way: The IOC writes now in its tables (www.olympic.org: medals by country) to every list of FRG that this is only the other name for GER in a special period of time! So you, as you prefer IOC tables so much should at least count together GER+EUA+FRG!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.169.119.181 (talk) 17:04, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

From the IOC Website Look at any of the tables between 1956-1988, in ranking Germany they ALL say.

German Democratic Republic (1955-1990), GDR

Federal Republic of Germany (1950-1990, "GER" since) FRG

In other words, they all recognise GER as a successor NOC to FRG. I think we should follow the IOC on this one and recognise what they're doing, rather than making up our own rules that I believe constitutes "original research"?

(Check it out - http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/past/index_uk.asp?OLGT=1&OLGY=1988)202.139.104.226 (talk) 12:19, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Change “medal winning nations″ to ”medal winning IOC Codes“

The "United Team of Germany" (EUA) is/was not a nation. So I would suggest to either remove this entry or change "nation" to "IOC code" in the table. This would be less ambiguous.

Another example: The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) is written in italics, which is wrong, since the Federal Republic of Germany still exists. The territory of the former German Democratic Republic was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany after reunification. So, the word "nation" in the title of the table is again misleading, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.53.87.178 (talk) 15:03, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Missing Countries

I don't see El Salvador listed here... can someone give me a reason why? 72.199.182.210 (talk) 21:23, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

See El Salvador at the Olympics. It has never won any medal at the Olympics. Reywas92^Talk 22:41, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

All-time Paralympic Games medal table

I just created the All-time Paralympic Games medal table. Its pretty obvious that I got my inspiration from the All-time Olympic Games medal table and seeing that the Paralympics were missing a similar article I took action; and it took forever to do it by myself. In the end all I could finish was a list showing the summer paralympics. Now I am knackered and wouldn't mind some help with the winter paralympics being added and a grand total for both events. If someone would be willing to check my counts that would be great also. I'm going to take a bit of a break from this due to real life, but any assistance would be greatly appreciated :-) -- Phoenix (talk) 09:16, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

List of Countries with no Olympic medals

Merely just an article request for List of Countries with no Olympic medals. Posted here too. --Ichabod (talk) 17:57, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Instead of a new article, why not add a separate table of 0 medal NOCs, past and present? --Kvasir (talk) 21:51, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I wrote a section for that in a previous edit, but deleted it after I wrote the List of participating nations at the Summer Olympic Games article. It is trivial to re-add the list of "no medals" NOCs, so I will do so shortly. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:09, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Well i think a separate table for 0 medal is beneficial. Most of the time people ask which NOC won the most medals, which ones have never medalled, or how many did ABC win (which could happen to be 0). Seldom do you have people ask which one won exactly 56 medals? This will eliminate questions like we have above with El Salvador. I have started a one-entry table to be expanded after the 2008 Olympics. I also think it's useful to include number of Games these NOCs have participated in as reference. --Kvasir (talk) 22:25, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Good job on the table. I see Tuvalu is missing, I also suspect there maybe old NOCs that should be in this list. After the 2008 Games are done the table can be updated and split into 2 or 3 columns to save space. --Kvasir (talk) 06:54, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

If it's split into multiple columns, the sortability is useless. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

True. We can always resort to the hide option then. --Kvasir (talk) 17:26, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Old NOCs to be added: YAR, YMD, MAL, BOR. --Kvasir (talk) 07:22, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

There are several more than that, but I purposefully left them off, focusing only on the list of current NOCs (but missing Tuvalu, sorry). If we have consensus to add them, they should probably be split into a different table, because it is misleading to suggest they could ever win anything in the future, and it might cause more confusion than it helps. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah there were more but I believe they were simple name/code change so I don't think they deserve separate listing under the current convention. Yeah let's have some consensus on these old NOCs. I don't think they would present a problem because the same italic system can be used to indicate obsolete NOCs. --Kvasir (talk) 17:26, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You are still missing Saar in 1952. And perhaps IOA in 2000 (but it's not really a NOC). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:42, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Error in the US count?

The US is recorded as having won 9001 medals at all Olympics in history. Scanning the other numbers on the page I find it hard to believe, especially considering that the next highest total appears to be the Soviet Union at more than 8000 less (I know it excludes the Unified Team, Russia etc., but still). Is this a math SNAFU or did I miss something? Was this perhaps vandalism? Wally (talk) 03:07, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it was vandalism, and was corrected. David Biddulph (talk) 08:52, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Only in the English Wikipedia Germany is rated lower

Everywhere the medals won by East- and West-Germany are counted together, except for the English Wikipedia. Why is that? Germany is number three. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.198.243.25 (talk) 16:38, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Explain to us why it would make sense to combine East Germany and West Germany. Take into account that they sent two separate delegations to several Olympic Games, which made the following possible:

1972, in women's 4x100 meter relay, West Germany won the gold medal, East Germany won the silver medal. This is only possible because they were separate countries, so combining them is unfair to other countries. Other examples:

1972, in women's 4x400 meter relay, East Germany won the gold medal, West Germany won the bronze medal.

1972, in boxing, light middleweight, West Germany won the gold medal, East Germany won the bronze medal.

1976, in women's 4x100 meter relay, East Germany won the gold medal, West Germany won the silver medal.

1976, in boxing, welterweight, East Germany won the gold medal, West Germany won the bronze medal.

There are many more examples as well.

See the problem with combining them? Phizzy (talk) 20:44, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I see the problem. But I see no problem with combining the medals of West Germany (FRG), United Team of Germany (EUA) and Germany (GER).

Equol (talk) 15:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

• I know that this was debated before, so here is a very good compromise taken from the Spanish wikipedia:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medallero_de_los_Juegos_Ol%C3%ADmpicos_de_Verano

Please take a look at it because it concerns other countries (like USSR/Russia, Serbia/Yugoslavia) too. And please keep in mind that countries like Russia are the OFFICIAL POLITICIAL successor of the USSR like SERBIA is the official political successor of YUGOSLAVIA and Germany is the offiical succesor of the German Empire, the Federal Republic of Germany, the United German Team...and so on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.198.243.25 (talk) 16:38, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

This is a table of Olympic teams. Political succession is irrelevant. You cannot combine the totals of the USSR with Russia, Yugoslavia with Serbia, etc. This is massively offensive to Estonians, Ukrainians, Croatians, etc., as I hope you can understand. Just because other wikis engage in original research and/or non-neutral POV doesn't mean we have to. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:51, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The situation of USSR/Russia and Serbia/Yugoslavia is different from the situation of Germany. USSR and Yugoslavia were multiethnic states and split up in different countries. In the German case the United Team of Germany (EUA) and Germany (GER) for example differ only in the IOC code.

Equol (talk) 15:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The United States is perhaps the most multiethnic country in the world, so perhaps we shouldn't count it? The ethnicity of the population means nothing; both the Soviet Union and the United States are multiethnic but both are considered a single country. As for "massively offensive" or not, too bad. The editors on Wikipedia do not engage in revisionist history or try to make political points, we just present the data given to us. As I have said before, the only reason the USSR and Russia are not combined is because they participated under a different NOC. That's it, there's nothing else to it. If they shared the same NOC, we'd combine them. No its or buts about it. We're not here to make people feel better about themselves. FIFA considers the Russian football team to be the successor of the USSR team, so their records are combined (or should be, hmm...) Unfair? It doesn't matter, if you cannot put your political or nationalistic views aside, you shouldn't edit Wikipedia.--71.112.145.102 (talk) 18:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

From the IOC Website Look at any of the tables between 1956-1988, in ranking Germany they ALL say.

German Democratic Republic (1955-1990), GDR

Federal Republic of Germany (1950-1990, "GER" since) FRG

In other words, they all recognise GER as a successor NOC to FRG. I think we should follow the IOC on this one and recognise what they're doing, rather than making up our own rules that I believe constitutes "original research"?

(Check it out - http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/past/index_uk.asp?OLGT=1&OLGY=1988)202.139.104.226 (talk) 23:51, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The main problem with this table is that the whole thing is original research. The IOC has never released such a table before so all of the editors working on this have to be as careful as possible to avoid nationalism and bias. The only way we can do this is to list medals for each separate NOC and avoid combining different NOCs altogether. Personally, I've thought this article has been a huge waste of time for everyone and it should ultimately be deleted. Hopefully, someone who is registered and knows how will nominate it for deletion. Anyway, I did check and you're right, it does does say "'GER' since". I'm not sure whether this warrants us combining the two, however. For example, let's assume that Belarus unifies with Russia into a single state but keep Russia's NOC, "RUS", does that mean we add Belarus' medals since the two unified or add all of them together, even before they were unified? That's the question I'm sure is going to bug many editors here and we need to come to a consensus on the issue. I'm not arguing for or against your position, just saying we need to have more people join this discussion.--71.112.145.102 (talk) 03:10, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

GER is not the successor National Olympic Committee for FRG - it is the same NOC, and just changed the country code (and it was the same committee during 1956-1964, too). Therefore, I am strongly of the opinion that this should be treated as a pure name change (such as HOL->NED) and combine the figures of GER, FRG and EUA. (Hope such a mess will never arise in my country of BEL...) 213.219.163.77 (talk) 22:19, 25 August 2008 (UTC)