Weird way USA is rigging medal tally

Americans reading about the Olympics have a different take on which country is currently winning the medal tally in this year’s Games.

Ariarne Titmus is back in action today. Picture: Tom Pennington/Getty Images

If you were an American reading about the Olympics this morning, you would very likely have a different take on which country is currently winning the medal tally to the rest of the world.

Traditionally, the ranking of nations on the table is dictated by how many gold medals a nation has.

If they are tied on gold then it goes down to how many silvers they’ve won, and then the same rule applies with bronze medals.

However, many major US publications — including NBC and the New York Times no less — have come up with their own way of ranking the world’s nations.

NBC has America on top.

As does the New York Times.

And — surprise, surprise — it means that a certain nation ends up on top of the table.

Looking at the rankings on several USA sites this morning, America sits firmly on top — with nine golds, eight silvers and eight bronze medals.

The logic is that Team USA has won the most overall medals.

However, this is not correct according to the official Olympics website, which shows that the real leader — as of this morning at the time of writing — is the host nation Japan.

That’s because the Olympics website — like every other medal tally outside of the USA — values gold above all else.

Here’s what the official Olympics website shows.

Japan has 10 golds, three silvers and five bronze medals — meaning they are coming first. The USA is in second and China is third.

What’s the cards for today?

Australia’s Ariarne Titmus will look to eclipse Katie Ledecky once again in the Tokyo Olympics pool on Wednesday, after a dramatic fourth day of action with US gymnastics great Simone Biles withdrawing from the women’s team final citing mental health concerns.

Biles, who won four gold medals in the 2016 Rio Games, said she does not “trust herself as much” as she used to after pulling out following her opening vault on Tuesday.

The Americans went on to lose their team crown to the Russians, denting Biles’ hopes of equalling Larisa Latynina’s all-time women’s record of nine Olympic gold medals.

RELATED: Follow our live Olympics coverage

Japanese icon Osaka, who herself was playing her first event since withdrawing from the French Open citing mental health issues, was knocked out of her home Olympics earlier Tuesday in a shock loss to Czech player Marketa Vondrousova.

Titmus, nicknamed “Terminator”, toppled 2016 champion Ledecky in a thrilling 400m freestyle race and she leads the timings heading into the morning 200m final, with the American third fastest.

Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey was second quickest, and the eye-catching final also includes longstanding world record-holder Federica Pellegrini of Italy.

Ledecky is in the middle of an arduous program that also includes the 800m as well as the 1500m, where she topped the timings in the heats late on Monday.

Ariarne Titmus is back in action today. Picture: Tom Pennington/Getty Images

The American enjoyed a welcome evening off after the 200m heats and hopes it will give her some extra energy in Wednesday’s final, held in the morning to suit US TV audiences.

“I think that’s all I need to get myself a little reset going into that next morning,” she said.

Fresh from leading the Russian gymnasts to a narrow men’s team win over Japan, world champion Nikita Nagornyy will again face home hope Daiki Hashimoto in the men’s all-around competition.

In men’s basketball, the USA will look to bounce back quickly against Iran after they fell to a strong French team for their first Olympic defeat in 17 years.

The collection of NBA players led by Kevin Durant looked far from a “Dream Team” and they will come up against a motivated Iran following decades of political ill-feeling between the two countries.

Elsewhere, three-on-three basketball — a version of the sport designed to appeal to a younger audience — will celebrate its first Olympic champions and baseball, a highly popular sport in Japan, will make its return to the Games schedule for the first time since 2008.

And the men’s Rugby Sevens competition reaches its climax with defending champions Fiji playing Argentina and New Zealand tackling Britain in the semi-finals

You can view a full schedule of the day’s events here, while you can keep up to date with all the latest results here.

- with AFP