It's been based on golds for as long as I can remember in the UK; that's why we were so upset in 1996. Winning only one gold medal meant we came 36th in the table, whereas on the "medal count" measure we'd have been 19th. Still very poor, but not as terrible as it actually was!

As far as the US is concerned, maybe Beijing has something to do with it. In 2008, China topped the table on golds... but the US topped the table on total medals. As far as we're concerned, China won it; as far as much of the American media is concerned, they didn't!