2010 Olympic Medal Count: Best Sites for the Latest Medal Count Info for the Vancouver Winter Olympics

Following the stats on Olympic Medal Counts has never been as exciting as it is this year. Interesting info at several official Internet sites for the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games make finding statistics on current and previous medal counts in all sports - or a specific sport - as easy as a click of your mouse. Go to any of these sites now and find plenty of great historical information on previous Olympics.

In just days these sites will be updated to include medal counts for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. For now, you can familiarize yourself with each site and pick your favorite site to return to again and again.

To determine which Olympics Medal Count site I liked the best, I selected an event, the Bobsled, and looked for links to current medal counts - as well as medal counts from previous Olympics - by country.

Vancouver Olympics Gold Medal Count on the Internet - Finding the Latest and Greatest Information

I've divided my favorite finds into Bronze, Silver, and Gold choices. Check each site and see if you agree.

Olympic Bronze Medals

Yahoo Sports - Yahoo gives you a way to quickly locate the number of medals for each country by sport. Or see the overall medal count. This is a "just the facts, ma'am, list of medal counts. Great for a quick look while you are at the office or need a site that will load quickly.

USA Today - While USA Today does a good job providing lots of Olympics information, getting a quick look at current and historical data on the Vancouver Olympics is not at the top of its list. Prepare to drill down through several menus to find anything. And there is little if any historical information that I could find.

On the other hand, I did like the short explanation of each competition, how it worked, how many heats for each event, how eliminations were determined, etc. I hadn't seen that info anywhere else.

There is also a very detailed schedule of televised events.

Note: I'm sure that USA Today will update its listings to show current medal standings. This, of course, isn't available before the Olympics begins. However, if you want to compare and contrast medal counts with previous Olympics, you will want to look at one of the other sites I have suggested.

Olympic Silver Medals

Vancouver 2010 - This is the official Vancouver 2010 site for the Olympics. Vancouver2010.com is great place to go look for information on the medal race on a country by country basis. And with just a few clicks, you can dig deeper. For instance, just use the drop down menu to choose all Olympic sports or a particular event, then choose current or historical medals. Clicking on a particular country in the Olympic medal list will give you a list of the names and events of gold medal winners for that country.

The Vancouver 2010 Olympics site is one of the easiest to navigate if you want a simple overview of medal winners - past and present. The drop down menus are also simple enough for Internet users of all ages to understand.

NBC Olympics - One hard-to-find statistic that makes the NBC Olympics site stand out from all of the other 2010 Olympic Medal count sites is the division of medals between men and women. Want to see how well the USA women are stacking up in the 2010 medal count against women in other countries? It's easy to find here.

In addition you'll find the current standings, 2006 standings, and all-time standings in an clear, concise format.

Prefer to look at Olympic medal counts on an event or schedule basis? Once the Vancouver Olympics begin, use the Results and Schedules menu for a simple listing of the medal winners.

2010 Olympics Gold Medal Winner

New York Times - The New York Times Vancouver Olympics medal coverage wins my gold medal for most entertaining and most fun site for Olympics medal counting. While there are the expected past and current listings of Olympics medal winners by country and event, the interactive medal count that shows current and previous Olympic medalists for each event is creative and at-a-glance wonderful.

For example, for the Bobsleigh events (seems like Americans are the only ones who refer to it as Bobsled), you'll find that clicking on Two-Man Bobsleigh shows a world map that provides a dark gold circle in the country of the 2006 Gold medalist. At the same time, a pop-up on the right side of the map provides the name(s) of the medalist(s). Click on the lighter gold circles of the map to find the countries with previous gold medal winners, their names and the year they won the gold medal.

This is one of the most engrossing maps for Olympics medal counts that I have found. Seriously, you could spend hours here.

So there you have it. All of these Olympic Medal Count sites for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games are winners. Decide how much information you need to know and pick the site that is a winner for you.

For the latest word on TV schedules for the 2010 Winter Olympics, go here.

Sources:
Yahoo Sports
USA Today
Vancouver 2010
NBC Olympics
New York Times