I noticed this at the time of the Beijing Olympics, but North Americans seem to rank their medals tables based on quantity rather than quality.

For example Canada is 4th according to the Vancouver Sun, with a total of 6 medals of all colours. However, the BBC rightly put them as fifth behind the Swiss who have three golds to Canada's two.

Why is this? Is that normal here? No amount of bronze medals equals a gold surely.

I agree this one is a bit of a conundrum. Its sort of a qualitative versus quantitative perspective.

In 2008 I put it down to the US media spinning it so that they could report that the septics were at the top of the medal table even though it was actually China.

Or maybe they really don't give a crap what they get just so long as they get a lot of it. A bit like in ABC country restaurants.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds this kind of odd. It's all a bit "never mind the quality, feel the width".

Not something mrs bsmith has to deal with.

...on either account!

Why bother awarding silver and bronze then?

I prefer the quality over quantity argument, though technically there is no "correct" method.

Read the Wikipedia page on it the other day

So if you are tied on Gold medals you can then move along the commodities to distinguish who is ahead.

should award the 4th place finisher a barrel of oil.

Definately.

Would you rather have 12 gold medals or 13 bronze medals???

Maybe the North Americans are learning to celebrate mediocrity like us Brits.

Look at the Beijing Olympics:
Italy - 8 gold, 9 silver, 10 bronze
France - 7 gold, 16 silver, 18 bronze

Those mediocre French certainly deserved to finish below the Italians in the medal table.

I seem to recall the Americans, or certainly the American press, using whatever ranking method gave them the best position at the time.

The ideal method would be to apply a weighting to each medal type.

Refreshingly in Beijing I did not have to look below 4th spot

Well, Vancouver will give you a chance to brush up on your geography then.

City TV reports Canada as being joint 4th with France, both on 7 medals, but to quote the reporter, " we have more gold than France"