Winter 2014–2015
Postcard / Abandoning the Gold Standard
Down for the count
![A postcard depicting the informational ranking table of the two thousand and fourteen Sochi Winter Olympic Medal Count, and a table representing the US media’s more favorable ranking system which tallies total number of medals won.](/issues/56/cabinet_postcard_056_1.jpg)
![The back of the postcard reads “Although the Olympic charter declares that “the International Olympic Committee shall not draw up any global ranking per country,” the IOC has, in fact, offered published medals tables since 1992 “for informational purposes only.” The top table overleaf is the IOC’s “informational” ranking of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, with the US in fourth place. It uses a convention favored by almost every country and its media—tally the gold med als won, and resort to silver and bronze medals only in the event of a tie. The lower table shows how the US and its media ranked Team USA’s achievements at Sochi, using a system that simply tallies the total number of medals won.”](/issues/56/cabinet_postcard_056_2.jpg)
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