I'm Sick of People Saying Someone "Won a Medal" When It Isn't Gold

I normally get all caught up in the Olympics. Every two years (winter and summer) I can pretend to care about sports that don't matter in the name of Patriotism. U.S.A baby! Much like how I'll care about U.S. Soccer during the World Cup. Sadly soccer now doesn't exist to me until 2022 (at the earliest).

 
This year I just really haven't caught that Olympic Fever. Perhaps I need more cowbell? I just don't seem to care about these Winter Olympics. As you get older real life starts to take center stage over pretending you care about the skeleton. Plus the time differences fuck me up and America not exactly killing it hasn't helped either. Just being honest.

Here's what I do know about the 2018 Winter Olympic Games:

-Some news station accidentally said they were at a P.F. Changs instead of wherever they are in South Korea.

​-There's some brother-sister duo in figure skating a la Amy Poehler and Will Arnett in Blades of Glory which is v weird.

-I know that everybody was hyping up some 17 year old girl for tweeting before her Gold Medal Run in I think snowboarding like she just cured Cancer.

-American fell in love with that sassy gay figure skater for being gay despite sucking at figure skating. (Seriously we're turning 10th place finishers into heroes?)

-No NHL guys are in the hockey part which made it far less enjoyable for an already casual hockey fan aka I haven't watched any of it.


​What I have realized from casually turning on NBCSN throughout the games is that the terms "won the bronze" or "won the silver" are tossed around like hot cakes and I for one don't understand. Now I'm not trying to take away anything from Olympic athletes. Obviously coming in 2nd or 3rd in your niche sport that 218 people compete in worldwide is a big deal, but come on. 2nd or 3rd isn't winning. This isn't the rafters at Lucas Oil Stadium. We're talking about the Olympics! 

In all seriousness, it is a great honor to get a silver and bronze medal, they matter. I'm not like saying you're a disgrace to your country for not winning the gold. This isn't Russia or North Korea. You're obviously a much better athlete than I am. If you train all your life to compete in the Olympics you deserve some sort of recognition for being one of the best which is why silver and bronze are awarded. Every medal counts towards the medal count. But it's just not "winning".  That's all I'm saying.

Like you either win the Grammy or don't. We don't give out smaller less valuable Grammys for the runners up. Winning is the Gold medal. Everything else is essentially a glorified participation trophy. 

Now I don't know what to do here because I can't put my finger on the term we should use, but it doesn't seem right to me to say "you won the bronze".  Maybe you earned a medal? Which seems fair. Because you totally did earn it, just didn't win it. You came in 3rd and got awarded for it which is cool and all but that isn't winning. Sure this is semantics, and sure it doesn't really matter much like the random Olympic sports that we'll forget even exist in a matter of days, but dammit this is the internet and I think saying you won when you didn't is stupid! End of rant.