An Olympic Way of Counting

The Australian team at the 2012 London Olympics has not lived up to the expectations created by past successes. For the first time in years there were ZERO individual gold medals in the pool and only ONE in a relay on the first night of competition. However, the team has won a lot of silver medals. At the time of writing Australia has a total 2 Gold, 12 Silver and 8 Bronze. This has prompted [attempted] witty newspaper headlines like: Is Silver the New Gold? or Going for Silver? Some wags have even kept track of how the Aussies are doing in the Silver Stakes, where "he with the most silver wins!". (For the record, the Aussies are tied with Japan and Great Britain for Equal 4th. Much better than the official 19th overall!)

Since Australia will never win the most medals of any colour, our media often does the simple math of dividing the population of each country by the number of medals. (See HERE for a 2012 example.) Then there's always some people who just have to take things to another level. Check out this crazy set of computations ranking the nations by wealth (GDP), population, and size of the olympic team.

But it's not just the Aussies that benefit from changing the way we measure success. The official Olympic medal count rankings are based on the number of GOLD medals a country has won. So South Africa is ranked higher than Australia because it has 3 Gold medals to Australia's 2. But, overall, Australia has 22 medals to South Africa's 4.

While the rest of the world ranks the teams by GOLD medals, the United States base their rankings on total medals. So Australia jumps 10 spots to 9th on the US medal table. Thanks USA! Now the cynic in me would say it's a tactic to keep the US at the top of the table longer. In Beijing 2008 the US had a total of 110 medals to China's 100 so topped all the US rankings. But China had a whopping 51 Gold medals to the United States 36 which gave China the overall win in the rest of the world.

Here's a little table I've created of the overall Olympic medal count since Sydney 2000.

Sydney 2000				Athens 2004
	Gold	Total			Gold	Total
United States	37	94		United States	36	102
Russia	32	89		China	32	63
China	28	58		Russia	27	92
Australia	16	58		Australia	17	49
Germany	13	56		Japan	16	37
France	13	38		Germany	13	49
Beijing 2008
	Gold	Total
China	51	100
United States	36	110
Russia	23	73
Great Britain	19	47
Germany	16	41
Australia	14	46

Interestingly, in 2000 the sequence of both columns are identical. However, in 2004, Russia and Germany would have benefited from the US counting system. In 2008, USA is the most obvious beneficiary while Australia would also have climbed a spot on the US rankings.

You can track the 2012 official standings here and the United States rankings here.

I'm grateful that God has amended his way of counting also. We often think usually think of God as perfect and without flaws, but His counting skills are seriously compromised by His grace.  Check out these verses.

Happy are those whose actions outside the Law are forgiven,
        and whose sins are covered. 
 Happy are those whose sin isn’t counted against them by the Lord  Romans 4:7-8 (CEB)

God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation.     2 Corinthians 5:19

People often think of God as the ultimate counter who counting every little thing we do wrong. These verses remind us that when we're Christians God has a new way of counting. In fact, He stops counting in deference to the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that he wants to be family with us. Because of Jesus he now forgives our sins because he values reconciliation with us more than accuracy.

Choker

On Sunday Adam Scott had a four shot lead in the British Open (golf) with four holes to play. He bogeyed the final four holes and lost by a shot to Ernie Els. That sure seems like the definition of choking. In letting this Major escape his grasp Scott following in the footsteps of another famous Aussie choker golfer, Greg Norman.  But it's all swings and roundabouts as the last time an Aussie won a major it was thanks to a Phil Mickelson brain freeze in the US Open.

Also lost in the headline of Scott's collapse is the fact that almost everyone else on the leaderboard Saturday night, except Els, went backwards on Sunday.

• Adam Scott +5
• Graeme McDowell +5
• Brandt Snedeker +4
• Tiger Woods +3

It was a tough day to play golf. Luke Donald shot one under and moved up 9 spots!

Several other sites out there have made a sport of identifying chokers.  Here's a few to choose from:

• An Aussie perspective: Sportsbar.net.au (From 2008, a bit old as it names Spain as chokers in soccer, they've since won the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012! Although England held true to form with a penalty shootout loss to Italy! It also must come from rugby country as it leaves out Collingwood and St. Kilda!)
• A US list with pics from: foxsports.com.
• Here's another older list that does a good job of listing their Top 10 and telling a bit of the story.
• Wikipedia even has an entry for choking (sports) with numerous examples including my (almost) hometown Buffalo Bills of the early 90's. Four consecutive Superbowls: Zero wins!

The Bible doesn't really talk about choking, but I think it gives a few examples of guys who choked in life.  They had everything going for them and then threw it all away.  Here's my list:

Top 5 Biblical Chokers

1. Judas Iscariot - He actually followed Jesus around for 3 years.  He heard him teaching, he could ask questions, he had the opportunity that every Christian literally hopes to die for! Then he traded it all in for 40 pieces of silver that he later returned. Tragically his story ends with with hanging himself. (He literally choked himself... sorry, couldn't resist.)
2. King Rehoboam - He took the throne after Solomon, Israel's greatest, richest, most powerful king.  Every coach or player following in the footsteps of a legend knows the pressure that comes with that situation. Rehoboam crumbled under the pressure. Intending to put his own stamp on the nation he raised taxes and applied a firmer hand in his rule. In response the people rebelled and the nation split into two kingdoms! (1 Kings 12)
3. King Saul - The first king of Israel also had great expectations. The people demanded a king in spite of God's warnings.  He got off to a bright start in winning some battles, but ends his life turning from God, consulting a witch, and dying in battle with most of his sons.
4. Moses -He accomplished a lot of great things for God, but he also bailed at crucial moments. Commissioned by God to confront Pharaoh, Moses gave one weak excuse after another until God eventually sent his brother Aaron to do all the talking for him. And the ultimate "choke" was leading Israel out of Egypt toward the Promised Land for 40 + years and then dying on the threshold of entering the land.
5. 9 Lepers - There are lots of stories about lepers in the Bible.  They often demonstrate how God uses the weak things and people in life to accomplish his purposes. But Luke 17 tells of Jesus' encounter with 10 lepers.  He heals them.  That's a terrific blessing and high for them. They choke though, because 9 of them are forever remembered as failing to thank Jesus.  They serve as an object lesson of what NOT to do.  From a life changing high, to finger wagging for at least 2,000 years!!

Any other suggestions?

Moral: If you're going to choke, do it somewhere unimportant, like on the sports field.  Don't choke in life.  Keep your commitments. Finish what you start.