China second on the medal tally? Only in America

Iceland's silver medal was impressive considering it was their first silver medal for 52 years and their handball team came 8th in the 2007 World Championships & 11th in the 2008 European Championships, but it's a single event. There must be better ways to judge Olympic success.

For some contries, getting one medal is a huge deal and is almost impossible to win. In essence, countries with big populations AND a lot of wealth should win more medals, simple as that. These tables just give an idea of how suprising or not a country's performance really is, nothing more. So Iceland's bronze really is an impressive achievement. And Jamaica and Mongolia etc really did very well, all things considered.

Here are some links to Mitchell and Simon Forsyth's work: http://www.billmitchell.org/sport/medal_tally_2008 http://simon.forsyth.net/olympics.html I don't really buy it since 1 medal is the difference between Iceland coming 3rd or not featuring at all.

The US Olympic Committee/Council awards its athletes something like S$25,000 per gold medal, $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze. It's pretty clear they don't feel the three medals are equal. So those dollar figures should give an idea on how to weight things. Of course, what would have been really contentious is if the US had something like 49 golds and a total of 102 and China had 51 golds and 100 total. Who would have been top? By the way, there is a web site by an Aussie economist called Bill Mitchell who has compiled "real" medal tables based on population and on GDP. Using those rankings in a crude and not totally scientific manner, averaging those rankings give something like a decent proxy medal table ie countries who have done well by population and by how rich they are. The winner then is Jamaica, followed by Mongolia, Cuba, Belarus and Georgia. Australia comes in a respectable sixth (same as their actual standings on the IOC table). The US is 18th (actual 2nd), Great Britain is 14th (actual 4th), Russia is 8th (actual 3rd). China is nowhere. The bottom five are Venezuela, Israel, Eqypt, South Africa and Chile.

I forgot about the trampoline. Tax players always complain about where their money is going. If the government cut the funding, people would complain that the government isn't doing enough to help Olympic athletes. It's the same thing in New Zealand with the America's Cup. Win and it's a crowning achievement. Lose and it's a waste of tax payer's money.

JohnB Agree on all points - rip them all out - they're a JOKE!! I predict a change of profession for you in the very near future...

Interesting to look at the medals breakdown - 302 events in total - Aquatics (46) [Comprising - Diving (8), Swimming (34), Synchronized swimming (2), Water polo (2)] Archery (4) Athletics (47) Badminton (5) Baseball (1) Basketball (2) Boxing (11) Canoeing (16) Cycling (18) Equestrian (6) Fencing (10) Field hockey (2) Football (2) Gymnastics (18) [Artistic (14), Rhythmic (2), Trampolining (2)] Handball (2) Judo (14) Modern pentathlon (2) Rowing (14) Sailing (11) Shooting (15) Softball (1) Table tennis (4) Taekwondo (8) Tennis (4) Triathlon (2) Volleyball (4) Weightlifting (15) Wrestling (18) Taking out the so-called "joke" sports doesn't actually reduce the total number that much (even if you call gymnastics a "joke" sport). Now I don't like the "artistic" sports much but OJ is right that artistic gymnastics (and diving for that matter) is very popular and very traditional (and an incredible test of strength and skill). If you start saying they're not real sports, then why not object to sports with a military background, or which have had drug issues, or which involve subjective judging (like the fighting sports)? Wouldn't leave you with much.

Re taxpayer's funding of sport, these are the immediate concerns: 1. A whole lot of vested interests are lining up for massive increases in sports funding, especially for the next Olympics (and incredible as it sounds, the fact that Great Britain finished above Australia will be one of the drivers); 2. Over the decades, we have spent a small fortune on Gymnastics, just so that we could move up in the rankings from around 100th to about 19th - we have never come remotely close to getting a medal in Gymnastics - so why all this massive expenditure on a sport that truthfully, 99% of Australians could not care less about. 3. The minute you have to wear make up and glitter to stand half a chance of scoring well in an event is when you know there is something a little bit peculiar about that "sport". Actually, that last point has nothing to do with taxpayers' funding - or does it??

I don't believe for a second that people have any vested interest in what sports are represented at the Olympics, nor do I believe they watch sports they don't like. Gymnastics is one of the showcase events of the Olympics, with a huge global audience and a long history of Olympic tradition. Synchronised swimming is a popular feature of the games. This backwater attitude towards the Olympics is small minded. Tax payer's money is the eternal whine. There were 16 gold medals up for grabs in Gymnastics and 2 for synchronised swimming. Cycling had 18 medal events. Canoe/Kayak/Rowing had 30. GRRR the manly events.

Cameron You are being slightly ungracious but I agree with your general proposition that there are too many joke sports in the Olympics - and these joke sports are like the mother lode in terms of the sheer quantity of medals on offer. Then again, I have very fond memories of playing ping pong (both the real version and the world's first ever electronic game) as a kid, and would happily see other garage sports promoted to the Oympics. Here's a list just for starters: Pool; hookey; darts; sjoelbak... Better still, I would hope that there would be many variants of these sports so that an absolute stack of medals are on offer (just like all the gymnastic type of events, and other garbage of that ilk). So we could have hookey and darts, full sighted; blindfolded; and then a multitude of similar variants at different distances, including individual and team events. Think of the variants of Pool games we could come up with, including individual and team events, hindered events (e.g. the pool table sits inside a small room with only half a metre space between the table and the wall, meaning every shot is hindered), etc., and also different medals for different sized tables; someone who can kill it on a 6 ft table may not be so proficient on a 12 ft table, etc. I'd watch these before I watch some of the joke sports in the current Olympic roster. Hopefully some of the taxpayer's money we currently waste on joke sports like gymnastics and synchronised swimming and the like can be redirected to these far more preferable pursuits.

You do know that table tennis is the second most popular sport in the world. Just becuase Americans are not good at it doesn't give you the right to call it a joke sport. Its popular in most Asian countries. getting rid of it will reinforce the idea that the games is western-centric.

As the saying goes " there's more than one way to skin a cat" - so to is there more than one way to measure the success or otherwise of any nation at the games. Consider this, who had the "better" games, Tunisia ranked equal 52nd with one gold medal yet ranked 69th on the total medal count, or Sweeden ranked one place behind Tunisia on the gold , silver bronze count with 4 silver and 1 Bronze, yet ranked 38th with total medal count. The matter is up for debate, however take these points into consideration as they do matter. They only play one national anthem at the medal giving, - the Gold medal winner. The podium that the athletes stand on to receive their medals has the Gold medal winner positioned at a higher level than either the silver or bronze winner, - surely a reflection of the importance of gold. Finally, ask the athletes. I would bet that if you ask any athlete that won either silver or bronze in any quantity, would they trade it all for Gold and to a voice I'm confident the answer would be yes. No athlete who puts their blood sweat and tears into an event wants any other result other than Gold. So yes total medal count is a good indication of the health of a countries sporting abilities, but like life they will always be striving to win and come first, and for mine that means Gold Gold Gold!

To be fair Australia always perform well in the Olympics, especially when you consider the size of the country, but what is with this media obsession of how well GBR are doing and to a certain extent, a bitterness towards it. The reason Australia are so good at sports is because of money. Finally sports such as Cycling are getting proper investment which has led to the current success of the GB team. Great Britain, looking at the size of the country has always underformed at the Olympics but unfortunately, money talks. P.S. Sandy B, you forget to put Chris Hoy in that list. 3 golds in 3 events isn't bad.

I am an AMerican and I say , we won more medals! We won. But, Yes they won more gold. But check the joke sports they were playing and winning at other than the major sports. Bad Mitten and Ping Pong , Dancing in synch or some other garbage. We got beer drinking games for that type of stuff. Nice Golds CHiComs for those lame sports made for you guys to feel better. hahahahhahahaha No offence to anyone. All in good fun.

The IOC didn't begin endorsing rankings until Barcelona, before that it was simply the AP and other media outlets who published medal tables. The medal tally on their website is "unofficial" and for information purposes only.

Enough of the inter country fighting and ranking Surely the true winning nations of the olympics were Michael Phelps Insane Bolt Steph Rice with an honourable mention to Kirsty Coventry who carried a disasterous country on her shoulders - Im glad she got a gold after all those silvers - I wonder what ranking she would give gold over silver!

USrugbyfan... you may be right, but let's put in rugby terms. If team A kicks 10 penalties the score 30 points yeah? Now team B only scores 7 tries and the score is 35.. who wins the match????? Winning gold is the measure, otherwise the medals would all be the same colour. By the way, I've been around since the Rome Olympics in 1960 and the US have ALWAYS measured their success on the number of Gold medals won.... ALWAYS. A footnote: I was delighted to see Phelps break the record that will never be beaten. He is a humble, non-glory seeking gentleman who let his actions do all the talking, unlike many of the show-pony, bling wearing, big-mouths on the US (and some other teams it must be added) track team who got shown up for being trash talking wannabes.

Why does on the front page of the olympics website there is a medal tally with CHina on top then if it is not official? In any case I may be wrong about USA reporting of medals and perhaps letting preconception get the better of me. I apologise if what ohtani's jacket say is true.

dasliva, there is no official IOC ranking system as this is against the Olympic charter. They endorse the gold medal system that the rest of the world use, but the US has never followed this method. This just happens to be the first time since Barcelona that the US hasn't finished atop the gold medal pile and therefore people think it's nationalism. They're aggregated it on total medals since the rebirth of the modern Olympics.

Two back up my point on more diverse sports 2004 6 cycling 1 Hockey 1 Shooting 7 Swimming 6 swiming 2 Rowing 1 Triathlon 2 Sailing 1 athletics 1 Canoeing 1 diving 4 events to 7 events I think that makes us a more successful olympics