Olympics Propaganda I realized this in 2008 during the Beijing Olympics. There are at least two systems being used - one by the United States media, and another by most of the rest of the countries in the world (and Google, by the way). Look at the page I linked to below. http://www.nbcolympics.com/medals/index.html It shows the 2012 medals count. China is in the lead, and the United States is second place. Where it becomes strange is with Japan, which is number 3 with medals, but is actually tied for 9th place when it comes to gold medals won. See, the American media (catering to an American audience) have felt the need to base the country rankings on ALL medals won (gold, silver, and bronze), whereas the rest of the world (and international websites like Google) rank countries based on GOLD medals. I think the latter is a much better policy. Being "Number 2" or "Number 3" is not equal to being "Number 1", but NBC (and many other American medi...