Talk:1896 Summer Olympics

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For whatever reason, yeah, they rank them according to number of gold medals primarily; I don't know what's next most important for those with the same number of gold, but to stay consistent, U.S. is still going to have to come before Greece. -- John Owens 10:17 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

In spite of the note from 'Average Earthman' below the coverage that I have seen in the U.S. and Canada, be it paper, tv or radio, from 1968 to today have total medal count as the primary ranking criteria. I can't speak to how other countries do this, or how it was done farther back, but the way the medal count table is set up now is a bit confusing. However, having perused all the summer olympic articles I see that wiki is consistent in doing this so I am not proposing that it be changed. I'll simply leave this minor grievance here for others to see and agree or disagree with. MarnetteD | Talk 23:37, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How did Australia participate? We weren't a nation until 1901. - Mitch Edgeworth, Perth

Participation in the first couple of games wasn't by nation, hence there were no national Olympic Committees to select teams. So you didn't have one unified British Empire team. Average Earthman 12:03, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Medal count

I have seen medal scores allocated on the basis of either:

  • total medals

or

  • gold=3, bronze=2, silver=1.

Those two measures seem more reasonable to me than simply ignoring silver and bronze medals.

In any case, medal rankings that ignore population size simply weights the rank towards large countries. For example, Switzerland is at the bottom of the list, but it has 1/40 th of the population of the United States. It actually got 5 times the medals per citizen.
Bobblewik 10:44, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The medal ranking used here is the convention, as used by the IOC and various major media organisations worldwide. Average Earthman 12:03, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Per my note above, I would be interested to see any paper or TV listing that you can direct me to that lists by gold medal first. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not being cranky. I just have never seen it that way and would like to add to my knowledge. As to the current IOC website, yes their summary list is headed by most gold medals won, but it is important to note that they DO NOT have a total medals won column (I think they are trying to keep us up on our addition so that we don't forget how to do it). MarnetteD | Talk 23:37, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There are a couple of medal count inconsistencies between the tally on this page, and the tally at [1] (see the "Medals by country" link on that page)

  • Wikipedia:
    • Greece 10 / 18 / 17
    • Mixed team 1 / 0 / 0
  • Olympic.org:
    • Greece 10 / 17 / 19
    • Mixed team 1 / 1 / 1

I know the mixed team issue generates some anomalies, but I'm tempted just to align all figures with the IOC site. -- Chuq 03:02, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For anyone curious as to how the medals tables got to be the way they are here, the Olympic.org site includes the results of Dionysios Kasdaglis in "Greece" for the listing of Greek results but the Egypt/Greece pairing of Kasdaglis/Petrokokkinos as "Mixed Team". I have no idea why they do that. The current WP table lists 10/16 (17)/19 for Greece - this excludes Kasdaglis's results except for the paranthetical listing (for the silver medal in doubles tennis), which is there by merit of Petrokokkinos. If Kasdaglis is counted as Greek, the Greek results would be 10/18/19 and mixed team would be 1/0/1. -- Jonel | Speak 23:18, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] anniversary of the outbreak of the war for Greek independence?

In the Opening ceremony section it reads:

On 6 April, the Games of the First Olympiad were officially opened. It was Easter Monday for both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic and Protestant churches, and was the anniversary of the outbreak of the war for Greek independence.

What war for Greek independence was that? I was about to wikilink it to Greek War of Independence, but I can't find that date mentioned there. Is this maybe some Gregorian/julian calender thing, or is there maybe another war of independence that this date was an anniversary for? Shanes 22:13, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's a calender thing. Read about it in note 3. ;-) Shanes 21:30, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Austrlalian Medal Count

If Edwin 'Teddy' Flack won the 800m and 1500m, then why does Australia have no gold medals in the tally?

I'm guessing the medal tally at the time of this posting included Flack as British (this would lead to the 1/0/0 "mixed team" results as well). It has since been modified to consider Flack's participation as Australian. -- Jonel | Speak 23:18, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nations - Bulgaria

I don't know what and why "most sources" list, but Bulgaria did participate in the first Olympiad, sending five athletes and only one competing, Charles Champaud, a Swiss teacher (who represented Bulgaria according to the BOC) that came fifth in the vault (gymnastics) and also took part in two other disciplines. Bulgaria was 11th in the final standings with 2 points. Source: Bulgarian Olympic Committee website. Here's the Swedish Olympic Committee website that also says Bulgaria took part: [2].

Chile also claims an athlete in 1896. I think adding those two and subtracting Egypt probably gives the 14 the IOC counts. -- Jonel | Speak 04:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nations - Cyprus

14 nations? Since when the IOC are experts in political geography?

1. Kasdaglis is from Egypt, an Ottoman province under British mandate. Petrokokkinos is apparently from Greece. The IOC tells Kasdaglis is Greek but give no information about Petrokokkinos, but they are listed as a mixed team. According to IOC, Petrokokkinos is from where? And if he is Greek, then Kasdaglis would be Egyptian (unless we have a proof he was representing Greece at the 1896 Olympics).

2. Smyrna was, and still is, part of Turkey (Ottoman Empire at the time), except for the years 1919 to 1922. Unless we have prooves they were reprensenting Greece, we should list the two athletes from Smyrna under the Ottoman Empire flag.

3. Cyprus was since 1878 an Ottoman province administered under British mandate, a distinct entity like Egypt. Unless we have prooves Anastasios Andreou was competing from Greece, he should be listed under Cyprus.

4. But maybe we should list Kasdaglis and Andreou under Ottoman Empire... I would like to see what is the official version of the Turkish NOC on this subject.

5. For the cases of Bulgaria, Chile and Italy, if the affirmations of those NOC are not challenged by others (particularly the Swiss NOC and the IOC), they should be listed as participating countries.

6. My opinion is that we should list those countries: Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Chile, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, France, Greece, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and United States, a total of 16 countries.

Souris2005 09:36, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Switzerland on Map

Switzerland is listed as a participant nation and has its own page, yet it isn't filled in on the map. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Imlepid (talk • contribs) 23:11, 16 August 2006.

Completely hadn't noticed that, but you're definitely right. I don't know how to fix images like that, but I'll drop a note on the uploader's talk page. -- Jonel | Speak 04:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
yikes dont know how I missed that, but its fixed now --Astrokey44 05:08, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
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