Rio 2016 Gold Medal
The gold medal given to a rowing crew is not the same value as a 4 x 100 meter relay race. A gold medal given to a cycling race is not the same as a 50 meter back stroke race.
Gold medals for sitting down sport such as cycling, sailing, rowing, dressage etc are competitions in which the participants are taken from a very shallow pool. The amount of people with access to hi tech equipment that are used in the various sit down sport are very small. The equipment are very expensive.
No one would take Formula 1 as a cycling, sailing, rowing, dressage port, so why should we take rowing and sailing as a Olympic sport? It is time that we recognise that all sport do not have equal value. Maybe sit down sport should be 1/4 of the proper sport, thereby when the participants of the sit down sport win unlimited gold medals over many years, the medals they get will reflect the true nature of the amount of actual participants globally.
Clearly the International Olympic Committee see money in the sit down sports, and, therefore will chuck around gold medals as if they are going out of fashion. The IOC will have to look at the nature of the competition and really think about if they need so many categories in rowing, sailing, cycling and other sit down races.