As of 4 p.m. ET, Team USA has performed well at the 2024 Paris Olympics, leading the field in total medals with 30 overall, according to American media organizations. However, by the metric of gold medals, China is in the lead with eight gold medals, while the U.S. has five. This discrepancy in metrics for ranking countries has sparked discussions online and even prompted the creation of a new weighted ranking system by two engineers in California. Their system assigns different values to gold, silver, and bronze medals, with gold worth one point, silver worth half a point, and bronze worth a quarter of a point. By this new standard, Team USA leads the rankings with a total of 14.50 points. Despite the differing methods of ranking, Team USA still has plenty of opportunities to add to its tally of gold medals with 594 athletes competing in 253 medal events. The debate over which method of ranking countries is fair has led to proposed new systems, providing a fresh perspective on how Olympic medal counts can be assessed.
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