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美国运动迷称赞美国奥运队的表现，是“美国卓越主义”的另一个实例。
根据美国媒体，从全国广播公司(NBC)、美国广播公司(ABC)、福斯新闻、纽约时报、华盛顿邮报、美联社及其他美国地方性电视和印刷媒体（包括那些面向国际群众媒体）等报道，美国在奥运奖牌排名从一开始就一直位居榜首。美国媒体发布的奖牌排行榜，是根据获得的奖牌总数计算的。
然而，国际奥委会的奖牌榜却依据不同的计算方式。根据巴黎奥运网站的数据，在奥运开始阶段，美国并不是排在第一的。如在8月6日，美国排名第二，仅次于中国，而非美国民众在他们媒体上看到的第一。国际奥委会的官方奖牌榜，是以国家获得的金牌数量来排名的。
除美国外，世界其他国家在报导奥运时，无论是冬季奥运、夏季奥运或残奥会，都采用国际奥委会的奖牌榜。这种排名方式不仅是一种传统。这也几乎是全世界所有体育新闻报导时重要组成部分。
为何美国拒绝遵从由世界上206个国家组成的国际机构──国际奥委会的格式──美国体育记者很少或根本没有评论或意见。这也不令人奇怪。
然而，令人惊讶和震惊的是，非美国西方媒体——在报导体育赛事时通常带有民族主义色彩——却避免批评美国媒体和体育当局，以与其他国家不同，且以美国为中心的排名表来误导读者。
无论如何，他们如此做是在迎合美国人的自负和对第一的迷恋。可这种行为也伤害了美国奥委会追求的“奥林匹克精神，在我们所处的这个日益困难的时代，发展奥林匹克主义的价值观和理想，并促进宽容和理解，（以便）让我们的世界变得更和平”。
对于美国举动，社交媒体上的一些人就没那么客气或政治正确了。批评者指责美国媒体和体育官员隐瞒了不同的现实，加剧了美国对失败的恐惧和不安全感。吹捧美国在体坛处于领先地位舆论表明了，美国如何将体育武器化，以对抗地缘政治对手，尤其是俄罗斯和中国。一些有见识的体育迷也有评论说，这种固化地推行“美国必须是第一”的意识形态，会带来回力镖和负面的效应。
值得注意的是，当美国主流媒体报导奖牌榜排名时，留言的页面是被关闭的，以至于公正的美国体育迷无法提供反馈，包括那些将美国排名榜视为国王新衣的读者反应。不仅美国媒体关闭了批评的留言，澳洲等盟国的媒体也取消了类似的留言空间。
例如，参阅澳洲广播公司 (ABC News) 的报导“美国媒体歪曲奥运会奖牌榜，以使其看起来像胜利者”，其中读者的留言已被关闭
潘展乐“人类不可能”成就
与此同时，中国奥运选手潘展乐打破100公尺自由泳世界纪录，引起了世界泳坛关注。不过，西方媒体在奥运报道中淡化或忽视了这一非凡表现，而不是以头条新闻报导和赞扬。
更糟的是，西方媒体放大曾是澳洲奥运选手、现为美国公民的游泳教练布雷特霍克的反应，他质疑潘展乐令人惊叹的表现之合法性。在一段Instagram视频中，其愤怒的长篇大论，咆哮道：“听著，我只是说实话。我对这有所不满，我生气的原因有多项。”
“我的朋友都是史上游泳速度最快的运动员——从罗迪盖恩斯到亚历克斯波波夫，再到加里霍尔、安东尼欧文，一直到查尔默斯。”
“我非常了解这些人，我研究了他们30年。我也了解游泳这项运动，研究游泳速度。我非常理解。我是这方面的专家，这就是我所擅长的，好吗。”
“这（成绩）不是真的，你是无法击败那个领域的——查尔默斯、大卫波波维奇、杰克阿莱克西——你无法在100公尺自由式中以一身之长的优势击败这些人。这不是人力所能做到的，好吗。”
显然，霍克在没有任何证据的情况下暗示，如果没有药物的帮助，潘不可能完成这项壮举。
尽管西方媒体很少或根本没有尝试跟进这可能是本届奥运会上针对竞争对手最具争议的指控，但社交媒体上的其他人已经联合起来谴责霍克并反驳他的指控。同时，另一些人也对潘的游泳纪录进行了彻底检查，并做了详细分析，结果表明，这不仅是人类可及的，而且是可以预料到的，因为潘展乐在100公尺自由泳赛事10个最快纪录中就占了5个。
一位社交媒体上的粉丝就如此回应霍克
你需要更多地训练你的运动员，而不是像小孩般胡闹。仅仅因为他比自己的纪录快了一毫秒就说这是人类不可能的？运动员每年都变得更快更强，看看奥运开始以来的世界纪录就知道了。中国运动员现在接受的检测也比其他国家多得多。停止歧视并接受失败。
霍克现已撤下他咆哮的视频。但这并没有被大多数西方媒体报导。潘展乐在谈到禁药问题时指出，他在比赛前从5月到7月，就接受了21次兴奋剂检验。“我配合了所有的测试程序，有信心我的比赛是公平、乾净的。我做了很多有氧运动和耐力训练，以加强我在决赛中的推力和踢力。我们还采用了科学的水下监测和分析系统来检验我们的技术和泳姿动作，以便我们能够更好、更有效地训练。”
潘展乐可能是巴黎奥运接受药检最多的选手。
巴黎奥运的这一特殊事件也使人们注意到西方媒体和利益相关者如何推动排外的民族主义和种族主义的议程。
林德宜《巴黎奥运：赢家与输不起输家》原文：Paris Olympics: Winners and Sore Losers
American sports fans are glorifying the US’s performance as another example of the ‘exceptionalism’ of their country.
According to US media - NBC, ABC, FOX News, The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press and all of their domestic tv and print agencies including those catering to an international audience - the country has been topping the table on medals won since the beginning of the Games. This American table they publish is based on the total number of medals won.
However, the medal table of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) provides a different computation. According to the Paris Olympics website, the US has not ranked first since the Games started. As of 6 August, the US ranked second behind China, and not first as found in the table accessible to the US public. This official medal table provided by the IOC for information ranks nations by the number of gold medals.
Except for the US, the IOC table of medals count is followed by the rest of the world when reporting on the Olympics - whether it be the Winter or Summer Olympics or the Paralympics. This table format is not only a convention. It is also an important part of the almost universal sports reporting for the world.
Why the US has refused to conform to the IOC format - the organisation has the membership of 206 countries of the world - has generated little or no comment or opinion from sports journalists in the US. This is not surprising.
However what is surprising and astonishing is that those in the non US Western media - usually nationalistic in their coverage of sporting events - have avoided criticising the US media and sport authorities for misleading readers with an American-centric tabulation that differs from the rest of the world.
By doing so, they are pandering to the American ego and obsession to be first, no matter what. They are also doing their own country's Olympics committees that seek to adhere to the “Olympic spirit of developing the values and ideals of Olympism in those who visit and to promote tolerance and understanding in these increasingly troubled times in which we live, [so as] to make our world a more peaceful place” a disservice.
Others in social media have not been so respectful or politically correct. Critics are upbraiding US media and sports officials for concealing a different reality and thus playing up to the US fear of losing and sense of insecurity. Generating spins showing the US to be on top of whatever is in the sporting world indicates how the US has weaponized sports against its rivals in geopolitics, notably Russia and China. Other comments indicate the boomerang and negative effect that this fixation with pushing the ideology that the US must be first however and whatever it takes has on discerning sports fans.
It is noticeable that when US mainstream media report the medal count, the comments page is turned off so that fair minded American sports fans are unable to provide feedback, including from those who see the American table as illustrative of the emperor strutting around in his imaginary clothes. Cancelling critical feedback on this is found not only with US media outlets but also with the media of allied countries such as Australia.
See eg the report on ABC News on “US media skews Olympic medal tally to look like winners” where the readers’ response button has been disabled
Pan’s ‘Humanly Impossible’ Achievement
Meanwhile swimming fans from around the world have had their attention drawn to the world record breaking 100 metre freestyle win of China’s Pan Zhanle. Instead of headlining and acclaiming this extraordinary performance, Western media has downplayed or ignored it in their Olympic reporting.
Worse, western media have played up the reaction of Australian Olympian-turned swimming coach Brett Hawke, now a US citizen, who questioned the legitimacy of Pan Zhanle’s stunning performance. In an angry Instagram video tirade, he ranted: “Listen, I’m just going to be honest. I am angry at that swim, I’m angry for a number of reasons,” .
“My friends are the fastest swimmers in history — from Rowdy Gaines to Alex Popov to Gary Hall Jr, Anthony Irvin, all the way up to King Kyle Chalmers.
“I know these people intimately, I’ve studied them for 30 years. I’ve studied this sport. I’ve studied speed. I understand it. I’m an expert in it, that’s what I do, okay,”.
“That’s not real, you don’t beat that field — Kyle Chalmers, David Popovici, Jack Alexy —you don’t beat those guys by one full body length in 100 freestyle. That’s not humanly possible, okay.”
What Hawke was insinuating without a shred of evidence was that Pan could not have achieved his swim without the assistance of drugs.
Although western media has made little or no attempt to follow up on this possibly the most contentious claim made against a competitor in the current Games, others in social media have rallied to denounce Hawke and rebut his accusation. Yet others have conducted a thorough examination of Pan’s swimming record as well as a forensic analysis of the actual swim to show that it was not only humanly possible but also to be expected since Pan had already done 5 of the 10 fastest clocked times for that event.
One social media fan in response to Hawke had this to comment
You need to train your athletes more rather than crying like a baby. Saying it's not humanly possible just because he beat his own record by a millisecond? Athletes get faster and stronger every year, just look at the world records since the Olympics started. Chinese athletes get tested a lot more now than the others too. Stop the discrimination and accept the defeat.
Hawke has now taken down his video rant. But this has not been reported by most Western media. Pan, speaking on the drug issue, noted that he took 21 doping tests from May to July prior to the games. "I cooperated with all the testing procedures and stayed confident that I am competing fair and clean. I did a lot of aerobics and endurance training to strengthen my push and kick in the final split. We have also adopted a scientific underwater monitoring and analysing system to review our techniques and strokes, so that we can train better and more effectively."
Pan may have been the most drug tested competitor in the Paris Olympics.
What this particular episode in the Paris Olympics is bringing to the forefront is the way in which xenophobic nationalism and racism are driving the agenda of key stake players with western media centrally implicated.
