For me, silver and bronze medals are nothing more than consolation prizes.
It is rather controversial statement. Every olympic medal is precious. 
Olympic Games - General
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I loved the closing cerimony!
It was moving, at times. 
The double decker was a great idea, and I liked the performance by Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page.Was I the only one to see Jackie Chan singing a song at the end??
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It is rather controversial statement. Every olympic medal is precious.celso celso....
You are definitely not an athlete
If you were, you would treat the bronze medal as your biggest treasure 
well, of course i missed the closing ceremony.....i was sleeping
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I didn't get your point. Why should Itreat a bronze as my biggest treasure if I were an athlete?
I just think a Gold Medal can't be compared to any other.
A thousand Silver Medals are not worth a single Gold Medal in my opinion.
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Congrats to China, for leading the medal ranking the whole OG always with a huge advantage over the US.
Way to go, China!
As expected China wins most medals. Too bad they did it at expense of other countries.
US has almost same medal count as Athens but China really improved alot. They did great job preparing and hosting Olympics. 
Great Britain performed great too. That's good news for 2012. -
Of course all athletes should be treated the same way and they deserve respect. I never said they should not. Especially because some athletes are real heros, they do not have support, or sponsor, nor good training conditions and many of them overcome their weaknesses and even so are not able to win a Gold Medal. Sometimes, not even a Bronze Medal.
I was referring to the Medal Ranking when I said a Gold Medal cannot be compared to a thousand Silver Medals, and I maintain what I said. There is no point in saying that 5 Silver medals are worth 1 Gold medal. This is senseless in my opinion. China was way better than the USA this Olympics and trying to give points to medals according to the metal they are made of sound like a desperate attempt of the US to manipulate the results of the Olympic Games and claim to the World they were better than China.
Is it that hard to admit that China is the new Olympic superpower?
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Perhaps not 5, but 10 silver medals are. If a country wins 10 silver medals and 5 bronzes it's definitely an indicator that they have a good sports programme, compared to the country that only wins one gold, which can be a fluke.
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It is naïve to think that the American system is the way it is because they really care about the athletes.
They count medals this way because they finish first in the medal ranking. That is obvious.
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It is naïve to think that the American system is the way it is because they really care about the athletes.
They count medals this way because they finish first in the medal ranking. That is obvious.
They always counted like that and im pretty sure russia was better some olympics ago.
And im not saying that they really care about the athletes, but on the paper at least they do.And btw, i think the USA are probably the sportscraziest country in the world, so for me they are the number 1 for sure. (they dominate in summer and winter olympics...)
They have all the rights to show how many medals they have and count the way they want.But generally i wanted to say the same as Joana said.
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So does China. From my point of view, the way all the countries but the US look at the Medal Ranking seem to be more logic.
I am glad to see the rising of a new Olympic Superpower.
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I am glad to see the rising of a new Olympic Superpower.
Get ready for the fall of your "superpower" in London.
Because there's a lot of thing China won't have there... -
Get ready for the fall of your "superpower" in London.
Because there's a lot of thing China won't have there...I didn't get the point of using the possessive. Just because I think China did a great job?
I wouldn't be so sure they will fall. China is doing a great job and it seems their success is sustainable.
They already did a great job in Athens, I don't see why they won't have a nice performance in London. -
I very much doubt China will have a big letdown in London. They won't have the home advantage and everything that goes with it, but they will have four years of hard work ahead of them. I believe they will be very motivated to keep their success going. Possibly they won't be quite as successful as in Beijing, but there's no way they're going to experience the disaster that happened to Greeks here (only four medals!) after their great campaign in Athens.
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Of course i was sad when i won just a 2nd or 3rd rank but still i was happy that i have achieved something.
And im sure that this feeling is even bigger and more overwhelming for athletes at the Olympics.So i really really, cant stand it when people are always caring just for the goldmedalists, usually the 2nd and 3rd have worked as hard as the 1st, sometimes even more. And maybe they just lost cos of unfotunate conditions.
But you should always treat these sportsmen the same as the goldmedalists.
Nothing to add
China was great and probably will be very strong in London too, but I doubt Chinese are going to win medal standings. China has been preparing to the Beijing Olympics about seven years, because they HAD to show the world they are the best: the host and the empire in one can't lose. And they succeded. But they won't have such a big imperative in London and I suppose USA will be the best again and China may have 2-3 place.
By the way, China has rather weak team sports (except female volleyball and basketball), but can you imagine British teams during OG in London, e.g. handball, basketball or volleyball teams The only good team GB has is football and field hockey - in the rest, they are amateurs and I don't believe GB is able to biuld some not bad teams till 2012 -
Although I totally agree with you GB won't be able to have strong teams in 2012, I belive team sports are not the best way for a team to lead the medal ranking.
GB might invest in individual sports, where one person can get more than one medal. Team sports grant countries only one medal. The team sports in GB will basically consist of naturalized athletes, exactly like it happened with Greece in the Athens Olympic Games.
It goes without saying that the country which hosts the OG boosts its performance but I don't see why China would stop investing in sports. If they are doing it for 7 years already, why would they stop the good work now? It would sound not intelligent to do that.
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I didn't get the point of using the possessive. Just because I think China did a great job?I wouldn't be so sure they will fall. China is doing a great job and it seems their success is sustainable.
They already did a great job in Athens, I don't see why they won't have a nice performance in London.What I think is that China will be back to its Sydney's / Athens's number of medal in London.
I used the possessive because you used this word "superpower".
And I was not quite sure what you meant.China was already winning a lot of medals in Sydney and improved in Athens. But if you see the "rising" of China now, it mean that you don't think they were already a "superpower" back then. And since I believe they will be back to these figures, then I have to say they're going to "fall".
Now if you consider that they were already a "superpower" in Athens, I completely agree with you. But then, to me they're not really "rising", they are just having a peak performance because they are hosts.
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I belive team sports are not the best way for a team to lead the medal ranking.
I never said that too. I just think, we will have the weakest host teams in modern history in London