Every gold medal awarded at the 2016 Olympics will be the same size, but not all seem to have the same weight. Some events simply carry more prestige.
Let’s face it, American viewers typically are not going to laud an athlete who picks up a gold medal in, say, taekwondo as much as they would someone like Mary Lou Retton, who is pictured above a few days after her gold-medal-winning gymnastics performance in 1984. And in this article we look at things from an American perspective, which may not be the same as the world’s viewpoint.
We selected nine Olympic events that seem to top the list in terms of prestige in the eyes of the American public, then ranked those nine accordingly.