When six does not equal six

As a fan of the Olympics it pains me to have any criticism of the world's greatest sporting event but I just can't help it. The way we keep count of medals is wrong. Dead wrong.

On February 13 Apolo Anton Ohno earned his sixth Olympic medal. He skated to Silver in the Men's 1500m Final. Immediately broadcasts were saying he has tied Bonnie Blair as the the greatest Winter Olympian in American history.

Yes, he does have six medals and the chance to win more at these games.

Yes, Bonnie Blair earned six as well.

Yes, they are "technically" tied in medal count. That's the end of it though.

Bonnie Blair won five gold medals at three separate Olympics and one bronze in Lillehammer in 1994. Ohno could earn a gold medal in his third Olympics this year but he would not have the sheer amount of gold medals to be considered better than Blair.

I'm all for congratulating people on the overall number of medals but there is this strange disparity between number of medals earned and the color. I recall a moment when I checked the medal tracker on Vancouver 2010 website and found it rather odd that the United States and Germany were ahead of Switzerland even though the Swiss had three golds at the time and neither the U.S. nor Germany had more than one.

I would like to see, perhaps, a point system in place to gauge how well a country is doing in the games. Something simple where the different medals are weighted differently in points. Gold would be worth three points; silver, two and bronze, one point.

To see how the system would play out we can look at a few countries as guinea pigs.

The United States is currently in the numerical lead with 14 medals. Under the point system they would have 27 points (15 from five golds, six from three silvers and six from six bronzes) and a rather large command of first place still.

Next, we can look at Korea, Austria and Norway who are currently tied for fifth place with five medals each. In a points-based system Korea would rank higher than Austria and Norway because they have five better medals. Korea's three golds and two silvers would net them 13 points compared to Austria and Norway's nine.

I'm not suggesting this system is perfect but I think it is at least a better evaluation of quality versus quantity.

Ohno will almost assuredly win another medal in this games and NBC will loudly proclaim him as the greatest American Winter Olympian of all time.

That's all well and good for NBC.

I know who the real greatest Winter Olympian is, so does Bonnie.