They say it is a country of the lawyers.

I say it is a country of lawyers and media.

In a country with such a strong presence of media, media shapes the audience and audience shape the media.

The media tallies the medal counts and ranks by total number of medals not just by gold. That’s coz the public would only care if US is doing good and there is a good competition. Have heard anything about the Mens Soccer this year in US? Media has to sell its content, hence they rank it accordingly.

So it is a catch-22. Media shapes the audience and audience shapes the media.

The true ranking is ofcourse by the number of gold medals. And yeah, completely agree. Phelps is the best swimmer ever, not the best olympian. I think Lewis accomplishment is better than Phelps, for example.