Anyone who has spent some time watching the 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage foisted upon us this summer is no doubt aware of the Games' dirty little secret: a good deal of the competitions are total bullshit. No matter how forcefully NBC tries to say that beach volleyball is an athletic endeavor worthy of our time, it doesn't change the fact that it's mostly a ritualistic ass-slapping ceremony better left to the oiled-up hardbodies of Venice Beach. (Which isn't to say it doesn't require raw athleticism. It does. But so does running the Gauntlet in American Gladiators, and I don't see Wolf in Beijing.)

Know what other competitions aren't sports?

Archery (you might as well include billiards), equestrian (the real athletes, the horses, don't even get medals because they are considered to be "equipment"), sailing (do you know the difference between Finn, Yngling, and Laser Radial?), trampoline (come on), synchronized swimming (nothing that requires the application of makeup counts as a sport), synchronized diving (superfluous—either compete in regular diving or get out), shooting (see: archery), and weightlifting (not at least until they figure out their steroid problem, which is an even worse scourge in pushing weights than it is in track and field.)

By my calculations, then, 61 out of the 302 gold medals given out—a hearty 20 percent—shouldn't count toward a nation's official medal count. Keep in mind that this is a generous assessment of the inherent worthiness of the Olympics—you could make cases for rhythmic gymnastics, fencing, and flat-water canoe being cut as well, but if you did that you'd pretty much be left with the pole vault.

Of course, some will counter by saying, "Hey! The Olympics are supposed to be about the triumph of the human spirit and fostering goodwill. The more participants the merrier!" Unfortunately, that stopped being true the day some countries (cough, cough, China) decided to turn its competitors into assembly-line autobots placed strategically in competitions that they have the best chance of medaling in as some sort of signifier of their growing global dominance.

Just how bogus is China's showing this year? We decided to comb through the medal counts of the top five performing countries and subtract all of the victories they earned in sports that shouldn't count. The numbers confirm our suspicions: It turns out China has accrued a staggering 37 percent of its medals in the aforementioned bogus events—by far the largest percentage of any of the top-five medal winners:

1. United States:
Total Medals: 93
Real Medals: 82
Bullshit Medals: 12 percent

2. China:
Total Medals: 83
Real Medals: 52
Bullshit Medals: 37 percent

3. Russia:
Total Medals: 51
Real Medals: 42
Bullshit Medals: 18 percent

4. Great Britain:
Total Medals: 40
Real Medals: 32
Bullshit Medals: 20 percent

5. Australia:
Total Medals: 38
Real Medals: 32
Bullshit Medals: 16 percent

It turns out China's 46 much-heralded shiny gold medals are also bogus: a full 21, or 46 percent, have come in fake sports, including 13 from weightlifting and shooting alone.

Sorry, guys. But just like with your Opening Ceremony, we call bullshit.

(Oh, by the way. The country in the top 10 with purest medal count? That'd be Japan, which, save for a bronze in synchronized swimming, has earned all of its 24 medals in real sports.)