Anything that is judged should be worth like 1/10th as much. Gymnastics is as subjective as American Idol but with “objective” sounding rules to make it sound better. It may be a difficult competition… but anytime wearing makeup may make a difference in a score, well it is hard to take it completely seriously.
Likewise, anything that has referees that can make any significant impact on the contest, should be worth less. Japan had at least one bad ruling against it in the Women’s Football (Soccer) match today. The fewer of these opportunities the more significant the difference between gold and silver and not medalling at all is.
Anything that awards multiple awards for slight variations the same thing should be worth less. Michael Phelps has the most golds of all time, at least partially, because he has been able to compete in a whole bunch of slightly different events. He won the gold in the 200m butterfly with less than 6 minutes of total competition time. Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jenning had to put in 7 matches of about 90 minutes each for a single gold. Basically a single match of theirs took as long as Michael Phelps’ entire Olympics. So the pool full of medals he has should be taken with a grain of salt. He dominated swimming for multiple Olympics, anyone who can do the same for their sport should be considered on a similar level. And Misty and Kerri took gold in three straight Olympics.
Likewise, Judo awards 42 total medals for a single competition. I know why they do that. But for things like a medal count, being good at Judo shouldn’t reward you that much more than being good at Volleyball.
Any competition that requires multiple participants per side might deserve greater credit. I’m not sure exactly how to rank that but Football requires 11+ players. That is a lot more effort than say Table Tennis. China got 8 medals from the efforts of 4 competitors, simply because they competed in a sport that has a large medal to competitor ratio.
I’m sure there are more… but I’ve ranted enough at this point.
So, three events?
Well no. I’m not looking to eliminate events (except maybe the judged ones). Just opining on what medals should be worth more, and which worth less.