Who’s on First?

Over at the Wall Street Journal , Ian Johnson has written an interesting article on the ranking of countries competing in the Olympics. Not surprisingly, figuring out who is actually winning is no easy task:

Despite all the high-tech clocks, cameras and sensors, the Olympics still can’t give a definitive answer to one basic question: Who is winning the medals race?

The reason is due to a divide between the U.S. and the rest of the world. The U.S.—actually its media, including the Wall Street Journal —ranks countries by all the medals a team wins. At the end of Tuesday’s competition in Beijing, the U.S. tops that table with 22, versus 20 for China. The rest of the world ranks countries by golds. Silver and bronze are used only as tie-breakers. By that tally, China sat atop the rankings, with 13 gold medals, compared with seven for the U.S. (Wednesday’s medal events will have added to all these numbers.)

The split has its roots in the early days of the Olympics and reflects the movement’s evolution, from an organization that sought to eliminate nations’ victories over one another to one that celebrates them. And while it’s primarily a quirky point for most people, the difference in the medal tables arguably has its serious side too. Some see in the gold-first ranking—which is unofficially endorsed by the International Olympic Committee—one reason why countries have become increasingly ruthless in cutting funding for sports where they don’t have a clear shot at a gold.

All of this confusion about who is winning at the Olympics reminds me of another one of life’s truly great sports questions: Who’s on First?

Abbot and Costello perform their “Who’s on First?” sketch in the 1945 movie The Naughty Nineties.