Olympic Gold Rush

Even though it took a few days to get into a rhythm, Vancouver 2010 delivered the goods. A dozen different events, two weeks of non-stop competition, human drama, funny moments, athletes wearing their countries' colors (or, in a few cases, bizarre colorful patterns resembling a blind man's rendition of their flags): the atmosphere was definitely there and it was contagious.

It couldn't be any different. I mean, it's the Olympics, baby! For a sports fan, that's as big as it gets... well, sort of. The World Cup and the Summer Olympics are definitely bigger, but this winter stuff is pretty neat too. More importantly, it has that rare and special allure that draws people even if they have no real connection with the competitors; the kind of appeal that makes a guy from a tropical country that only sent a handful of people to British Columbia, none of whom with any chance whatsoever at a medal, watch women's Curling at 2 in the morning.

Still, as thrilling as the actual events might be, one of the most entertaining moments of the Games - winter or summer - takes place after the athletes step down from the podium. That's when they update the Medal Table - you know, the one in which countries are ranked according to the amount of gold, silver and bronze hardware their respective athletes bring home. The table is just a great idea: it's exciting to follow and it ties all the events together in one big contest.

However, despite being an Olympic tradition by now, these rankings are not official. The brains behind the International Olympic Committee, claiming that each each event is independent and an end on its own, refuse to acknowledge the very existence of a medals table. In a way, it's much like those annoying PC parents who pretend not to know the score on their kids' soccer games, even though everybody knows exactly who's winning.

The downside of this stupid policy is that, well, the rankings are not official. Supposedly, by playing dumb, the IOC was hoping to squash the idea of a medals table altogether - which just won't happen. So, instead, what they create is room for controversy in what would otherwise be a great way to measure Olympic success.

I first spotted signs of trouble in 2008, during the Beijing games. A good part of the North-American media, defying what had always been one of those unspoken international rules, decided to base its table on the total amount of medals of each country, as opposed to the traditional gold-over-silver-over-bronze system everybody else was using.

A more cynical person could say that this newfound love for silver and bronze was somehow related to the fact that the US, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, were losing the first place in the rankings. China beat them in the gold column, 51 to 36, but the Americans still had the upper hand in total medals (110 against only 100 of the Chinese), so their new criteria would suddenly put them back on top.

Whether or not these conspiracy theories are justified is of no consequence, mostly because nobody else bought this nonsense. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, it wasn't even an issue: the Chinese had more gold, they were first and that was it.

But then Vancouver 2010 came and the plot thickened. This time the US finished third, behind Canada and Germany. Oh, Canada! Americans would rather die than admitting they finished behind their neighbors from the north at anything, so everybody just knew, even before it happened, that they would hang on to that same lame system like a starving man hangs on to a piece of moldy bread.

Sadly, even though anyone can immediately see that their table is inherently unfair and that their motives are questionable at best, those bastards have enough pull to eventually sway people their way. Thus, before this schism turns into yet another metric-system-type debacle that annoys the hell out of everybody, it is time to standardize the Olympics Medals Table.

It goes without saying that the starting point should be that gold is worth more than silver, and silver is worth more than bronze. None of this total of medals crap. Of course it must be thrilling to score some silver or some bronze at the Olympics, but nobody on their right mind would ever agree that it is the same as winning the gold. Not even a biased American journalist.

I would agree, however, that stepping on that podium is a great achievement no matter what, so we can't really dismiss its importance either. And, even though I'm a big fan of the simplicity of the traditional table, it can be occasionally unfair. Take, for instance, Cuba at the 2008 Beijing games: it won 24 medals (2-11-11) and yet, because it had one less gold, it finished behind Georgia, which had only 6 (3-0-3). One gold medal against 11 silver and 8 bronze ones seems a bit too much.

Just like with the bullshit in the American table, anyone can instinctively see the superiority of Cuba's results there, and it would be hard to argue against a criterion that would account for this type of situation. So colors should matter, but perhaps this "gold trumps all" thing isn't such a great idea after all.

The solution could be some sort of points system, where each medal is worth x amount of points. The main complication in that case would be deciding how many points should be attributed to each medal, something that would undoubtedly unravel into one of those heated and never-ending sport debates, but I suppose that's when that IOC authority would come in handy.

In any case, it doesn't really matter exactly where the line is drawn, as long as the scale reflects the true importance of a first place (something the traditional table does quite well). It needs to be a really skewed ratio, like 15 points for gold, 3 for silver and only 1 for bronze. I mean, imagine you won some Olympic gold: would you trade it for only 2 or 3 silver medals? Or maybe for 10 bronze medals? I wouldn't.

(If we apply those values to the Cuba-Georgia case, Cuba would score 74 points [2 x 15 + 11 x 3 + 11 x 1] against Georgia's 48 [3 x 15 + 0 x 3 + 3 x 1], which looks about right. Order would be restored and we would be well on our way to a fair table.)

There should be, however, a couple of additional provisions in this system. See, in the Montreal Olympic Park they built, after the games were over, a monument honoring all the countries that won a gold medal there. The monument itself is actually is quite simple, just a bunch of flags arranged in a circle and a plaque, but nevertheless a symbol of how important it is to get at least one first place. It's like joining a brotherhood: here are all those who made it to the mountain top.

So this should be tweak number one: you need at least one gold medal to be ranked above a country that has a gold medal; and one silver to surpass a country with at least one silver. I don't care how many times you came in second or third, if you didn't win any event you can't say you did better than a country that did. You're not in the brotherhood. Moreover, would you trade your only gold for any amount of silver or bronze? Didn't think so.

Tweak number two should address an even more pressing issue: how on Earth can a medal in events such as Women's under 48kg Weightlifting or 200m Butterfly Swimming count as much as the ones from, say, basketball, football or volleyball? A team of several people working in unison throughout an entire tournament is the same as one dude swimming funny for a couple of laps? Really?

What bothers me is how athletes like Michael Phelps - amazing as they are and as entertaining as it is to watch them - can throw the entire table out of whack by racking up 3 medals a day in several different events just because their thing only takes a few minutes, while equally dominant football of basketball players wouldn't even get that same opportunity because their tournament takes 2 weeks. Or, even worse, how they have all these distances and weight limits in a lot of different sports, each one of them worth a medal, but we don't get to see stuff like basketball under 2 meters, football 7-a-side or one-handed volleyball.

In that sense, it is definitely unfair to compare the achievements of entire groups of athletes with those of individuals, especially considering how these individuals are often broken down into several subcategories to reflect different performance levels (e.g. weight limits) or really specific skills (like swimming belly-up). That is something that ultimately softens the absolute terms under which teams have to compete and, simply put, is a double standard. There's only one winning team, but there's a whole bunch of fastest runners, fastest swimmers and best judo wrestlers; one for each situation. And that, for ranking purposes, is a freaking nightmare.

Therefore, unless you consider swimming (34 total gold medals), weightlifting (15), wrestling (18), judo (14) and even diving (8) that much more relevant than the aforementioned teams sports - all of which combine for merely 6 podiums (8 if you count beach volleyball) - you can't say that this is a system that accurately measures the Olympic success of a country.

This, however, is a tricky problem to solve. First, the temptation of giving more weight to the most popular sports should be avoided - even though it would make for a very interesting table. The Olympics are about all sports, not just the cool ones and, in the end, any criteria based on popularity of would merely reflect individual preferences, meaning yet another never-ending argument - not the most decisive of steps if the goal is a standardized table.

Moreover, there is also the danger of concocting a formula so complex that would kill one of the best features of the traditional table: the simplicity that allows anybody to follow the medals race. If we start to compensate for things such as the length of the tournament or the number of different categories or whatever, we risk creating, instead of a medals table, something akin to the FIFA rankings: a process so confusing that only a half a dozen people in the world would even know how that final number of points was reached.

Nevertheless, there should be a way of rewarding those who excel in events that require the combined efforts of several athletes, even if for no reason other than the necessity of having that many people performing at the highest level to win a medal.

Thankfully, there is a straightforward enough solution: for ranking purposes, the value of medals in team sports (including relays and doubles) should be equivalent to the number of athletes competing in each squad. That way, for instance, a medal in football would count as 11, one in basketball would count as 5, one in the 4 x 100 meters relay would count as 4 and so on. After all, we count the medals of the "swimming teams", "track and field teams" and all the other "teams" individually, so why shouldn't the actual teams receive the same treatment?

It could definitely work: just multiply each medal by the value attributed to its color and then by the number of people who won it (reserves and alternates not included). Don't forget the brotherhood rule and voilá! Although not perfect, such a system would correct most of the flaws in the traditional table without becoming a statistical monster, preserving the fun of watching the Olympic gold rush while bringing the rankings closer to what most people would consider important.

Now, if only someone could please forward this to the IOC, it would be awesome.

About Rio and the Olympic Games

Rio’s victorious bid to host the 2016 Olympics was something special, though I must confess that, at first, despite being a proud carioca, I wasn’t really into it. I can’t quite explain why, perhaps 2016 seemed too distant and unlikely, and I probably wouldn’t even be in town, but I was following whole thing with mild expectations. It was a bit like when you think stuff like ‘it would be awesome to go to Bora Bora’, and then you run some numbers in your head to see if you could afford it, then go online to check airline fares and hotels, then search for touristic venues... You fantasize about the whole thing for a few hours, make a mental note to try and actually take the trip at some point in the future and go on with your life. That was me: I thought it would be cool to have the Games in Rio, but that was all.

Nevertheless, in the days prior to the IOC voting, I suddenly found myself caught in the craze created by the TV and billboards everywhere. They went all out on that final week, trying to get the entire country on board with slogans like ‘Your support can make the difference’. Yeah, right. Still, those things were everywhere, constant reminders of the bid carrying an unmistakable ‘it’s our turn’ vibe with them. I inevitably got sucked in by the atmosphere and actually made plans to watch the presentations and the voting, if I could find them on TV.

Due to the time zone difference, I woke up just after the last presentation had ended, but managed to find live coverage from Copenhagen on BBC and CNN, both of which included a bunch of analysts breaking each presentation down and measuring each city’s chances right before the voting took place. I didn’t even know networks had experts for that kind of thing (and based on the amount of people who were picking Chicago to win, my guess is they don’t, those were just random people picked off the street). In any case, that was a first for me. I usually follow sports close enough to be aware of most developments as they are happening, but when it comes to IOC meetings I had always settled for a short piece on the next day’s news. Not this time, though.

So there I was, on the edge of my seat, cheering and biting my nails, as if watching a World Cup match. Not a final – after all, not many moments in life command that amount of stress – but close. Definitely quarterfinals-worthy. And it wasn’t just because Rio was in the Final Four or anything, but the entire process is nerve-wrecking. The delegates watch that last pitch from all four cities and within 30 minutes they are voting. And this is no papal election, with handwritten votes and white smoke, either. It’s a press-the-key, two-minutes-and-we-are-done electronic voting. If no absolute majority is reached, they read the name of whoever got the least votes aloud and that’s it, they are out and everybody else just moves on. No wonder people in Chicago were absolutely stunned, the procedures are just brutal.

I don’t know if it is that exciting every time, but apparently London beat Paris for the 2012 honors by a mere 4-vote margin in the last round, so maybe I’ve been missing out on a good show there. Lots of drama, lots of tension. The cities bring up their respective A-teams, with no shortage of heavyweights. They also openly try to manipulate the emotions of the IOC delegates, meaning there’s no such thing as a cheap shot.

This time around we had, for starters Obama, Lula, King Juan Carlos of Spain and the Japanese Prime-Minister. I heard Rafael Nadal was there for Madrid, as was Oprah for Chicago. I could see Rio had in its ranks Pelé, Guga Kuerten, Cesar Cielo and Paulo Coelho, among others – pretty much any face that could be recognized internationally was brought aboard. Rio, by the way, was also milking that we-never-had-the-Olympics-in-South-America argument for all its worth. Chicago had Michelle Obama using up family memories in her effort to sway the voters. And by the time Madrid was done, all stop signs were pulled: the Spaniards had Juan Antonio Samaranch, former IOC president and still its Honorary President for Life, delivering a below-the-waist, I’m-really-old-and-might-be-dead-soon-so-please-award-the-Games-to-my-country speech. Just touching.

When the action finally unfolded, it got even better. We had the early surprise, with Chicago being eliminated in the first round. We had Tokyo as the Cinderella story, briefly allowing itself to dream before getting kicked out as well. We had a 90-minute pause before the final result was announced, building up the tension even further and allowing room for a barrage of analysts trying to explain why Chicago had lost. And, as fate would have it, the two finalists were the two cities that were taking shots at one another during that last week. Hell, even the dude who announced the winner struggled a little to get that piece of paper out of the envelope. For entertainment value alone, it was just an awesome show.

When the guy finally managed to read aloud Rio de Janeiro, I was already standing up and screaming at the TV like an unbalanced person. To my surprise, I found myself pumping my fists and raising my arms in jubilation, as if Brazil had just beaten an Italian-Argentine combine to win two WC titles at once. I didn’t know I cared that much, so I tried to understand why I reacted the way I did.

Well, first of all, it was pretty cool to see the Brazilian delegation exploding and jumping off their seats when we won it, with everybody hugging each other, crying, really going nuts. It would be hard not to follow suit. And I just loved to see President Lula’s reaction in an on-site interview he gave minutes after the announcement. Now, I rarely agree with him and most of his impromptu speeches are borderline embarrassing, but right there he was a guy who embraced an idea and gave his all to bring the Olympics home. It was a project that dated back to, at least, 1997 finally paying off. That was genuine emotion, and those were real tears. It was that important, and I could relate to it.

Digging a little deeper, I remember when my childish enthusiasm for sports began to coexist with a deeper understanding and knowledge about them. I was no more than 12 or 13 years old and didn’t have the first clue as to where Antwerp or Lillehammer were on the globe, but I knew they had the Olympics there. And Antwerp hosted the Games back in 1920! That’s the real legacy of it all, as far as I can tell: it puts a city on the map in such a way that it never fades away. To have that kind of mark bestowed upon my hometown had always been a dream of mine, even if buried underneath other concerns, those of a kind more appropriate for a grown-up to carry around. But it was all surfacing now.

So I decided, when I finally calmed down, to go online and gauge the worldwide repercussion to Rio’s nomination. You know, to see if people in Northern Nepal were out celebrating in the streets as well. In the mainstream media, everything was just as expected. In the US, Chicago’s early exit was already being explained by half a dozen conspiracy theories, while in Europe papers focused on the Rio-Madrid showdown and the Spanish heartbreak. In Tokyo, people had gone to sleep about 40 minutes ago, so I wouldn’t say they were too upset with the result. And as for Brazil, reporters could barely translate their euphoria into words. Still, the one point everybody had in common was that the ‘first Olympics ever in South America’ card decided it for Rio, which is probably true. The Brazilians rode that argument all the way to the finish line and I’m afraid that if Buenos Aires had organized the Games back in, say, 1976, the result most likely would not have been the same.

Meanwhile, on the online discussion forums, I noticed two different types of naysayers. Both groups had been around all along, but when the result came out, so did them, with their guns blazing. The first one was against the Games because the final tab would be several times over the original budget (which, truth be told, is a safe bet) and that sort of money would be better spent on more pressing matters.

I personally think the long-term economic benefits of hosting the Games outweigh the immediate expenses, but then again I’d support the whole thing for bragging rights alone, regardless of any financial return, so for me the point is moot. In any case, Rio is a city in urgent need of a makeover. Deficient public transportation system, really bad traffic, urban violence; whatever big-city problem you name, Rio probably has it. And, in a way, the overhaul that the city so badly needs is only happening if events such as these are looming in the horizon. In other words: Rio only gets the couple of billion dollars of federal money to fix and expand its subway system if it hosts the Olympics and the World Cup Final. Mass transportation is a real problem that the city needs to address and yet, without that extra motivation, there will always be something more important to do first. So there you have it: I welcome that fire under the politicians’ seats.

However, it was the second opposition group that really baffled me. Those people are against the idea because they think Rio simply could not pull it off. I’ve grown accustomed to that sort of pessimistic thinking in Brazil, where a large chunk of the population suffers from an overwhelming inferiority complex that does not allow them to accept that anything good could ever happen here, so they would be better off not even trying. Sad, I know, but still that was old news. What I couldn’t believe was how far that mentality resonated abroad. People from all over the world were actually afraid, saying the games would not be safe and that whoever dares to come should bring extra cash to bribe the police and be ready to outrun potential muggers. One fool was even questioning how Rio would manage to afford it – I guess no one told him that Brazil was one of the top-10 economies in the world.

It’s true that Rio has serious problems with violence and corruption and I am the very first to acknowledge it. I even mentioned above how bad it is. But to suggest we can’t keep our shit together for 17 days is outrageous. It won’t be the first time the city hosts a major international event and not once security (or corruption, for that matter) was an issue. There’s no way the IOC would just roll the dice and recommend Rio’s project – as it did – if those nice gentlemen who inspected the city earlier in the process didn’t feel that way. Rest assured, those guys never gamble, not even to win the headlines with a feel-good underdog story. My main concern is how they will handle that hectic traffic, especially considering how the events were divided into 4 big zones in opposite corners of the city. If they work that out, I have little doubt that the Games will be a roaring success and Rio will turn even the most skeptical bystanders into fans. Just wait and see.