I find it pretty cynical that whilst the rest of the world's media is following the IOC official Medal Table, i.e. ranking countries by Gold, then Silver, then Bronze, which currently puts China at the top, the big US media companies are instead ranking countries by total medals won, which of course puts the US in the #1 position.

Come on American, face up to it, the world order is changing. The 20th Century may be known as America's Century but things are quickly changing, and I'm not just talking about sport. The Olympics medal table as always been a good indicator for the general world order - and all the indicators point in the direction of the US heading south. Just look at the decline of the US dollar.

Now I'm not a proponent of the European Union forming an EU olympics team, but just imaging if they did, I can't be bothered to count up the total medals of the 25 EU nations but a quick glance at the medals table tells you that a EU team would have more than twice the amount of medals as the US. Now there's an idea, albeit not a good one.

With most of the Athletics events still to come there's a good chance that the US will still finish at the top of the table, using both methods of ranking, given that China's medal hopes come mainly from non-Track and Field events. It would be nice though if China did end up with more Golds and more total medals than the US. How would ESPN, NBC, CNN/SI, etc manipulate the tables to put the US top then?