You know how some times people will try to cover up how bad something looks by saying "Well the average looks all right"? Like, just hypothetically, "well we lost 400,000 jobs this month, but the average over the year is still good"?

I get the feeling there's some element of that in looking at the combined medal counts over the Summer & Winter games.

Congrats to Irina for that bronze DVD, er, medal.

I'm told that a country typicallly wins as much as 20% more medals than usual when they host the Olympics, which may explain why we dominated os much in the previous cycle. Nevertheless, we appear to be catching up with Germany and may overtake them this time around. (Although one wonders just how may of our medal winner are of German descent.)

For what it's worth, and not much...

the "Anglosphere" has 240 medals out of this group. Not bad for the sons of Albion.

That's a massive image and it takes too long for thepage to load. Could you find a smaller one?

That's a massive image and it takes too long for thepage to load. Could you find a smaller one?

It is ITA's new 56k detection system!

Does anyone know why they opted for a medal that looks like an optical disk or a giant washer?

The medals are supposed to represent the Italian piazzas.

They've been compared to bagels since the designs were introduced a year ago. No one seems to care what they look like once they are around their neck.

I personally appreciate how they are designing innovative Olympic medals instead of the staid round cirles.