Who is Leading in the Olympic Medal Count?

There appear to be two ways to compile an Olympic medal count: Either total medals per country, or total gold medals per country.

According to the International Olympic Committee there is no official ranking of countries, and the Olympics are between athletes, not nations. But on the I.O.C. website they do list countries according to gold medal count. And rightly so. After all, a bronze is not equal to a gold.

So, according to the method used by US media, the US is ahead in the medal count. But according to the method used by the I.O.C., China is ahead.

From NBC and other American news media:


From the Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games: