Larvatus Prodeo

One of the things that has given me the $hit$ watching Channel 7s coverage of the Olympics is the adjusted medal count; this thrown up when the “real” medal count doesn’t appear to meet early morning breakfast expectations. In Mel and Kochy’s world we’re always number one if you massage the figures the right way.

Truth be told I don’t like any medal count by nation; aren’t the Olympics supposed to be about singular human athletic achievement? By that measurement Michael Phelps is absolute number one and at this point he matches Australia in gold medal achievement. Maybe that should make 7’s adjusted list, an asterix or footnote would help their simplistic exercise.

Just to prick the early morning in studio Green and Gold flag waving jingoistic bubble for a moment, are we ever number one on any adjusted list?

In a recent post More Intelligent Life asked the medal count question and showed us at number two in Athens, second to the Bahamas. And then there is this site whose approach to the tally currently throws up Jamaica as the top dog. Pass the dutchy!

What about medals based on the money spent on sport science, or GDP, or the number of beaches added to grains of sand multiplied by days of sunlight? Or the number of former gold medal winners who failed to take gold this time around? On the latter metric I think we really are number one.