The United States saw its Olympic Efficiency Score ("OES") fall back below 0.5 today, but the Americans retain the lead for total medals. The Americans have also taken the lead for gold medals, which is how the rest of the world ranks their medal tables. So tonight, for the first time in the Olympics, we are on top of everyone's standings.
In other news, Russia's OES continues to improve, Japan is starting to fade, China's 1.484 is below the 1.769 it posted in 2008, and Great Britain's 1.388 shows the advantage of being host nation. The race between Great Britain, Germany, and France for most total medals is very close.
I should also point out that ranking countries on total medals vs. gold medals can make a huge difference. In the American press, Russia is in third place with 23 medals and South Korea is in 9th place with 16. But in the rest of the world, South Korea is in third place with 9 gold medals and Russia is in 10th place with only 3.
1. United States: 43 total medals (21G/10S/12B) -- OES of 0.478
2. China: 42 (20/13/9) -- OES of 1.484
3. Russia: 23 (3/12/8) -- OES of 3.620
4. Great Britain: 22 (8/6/8) -- OES of 1.388
5. Japan: 21 (2/8/11) -- OES of 0.674
6. Germany: 20 (5/9/6) -- OES of 0.980
7. France: 19 (8/5/6) -- OES of 1.252
8. S. Korea: 16 (9/2/5) -- OES of 2.244
9. Australia: 14 (1/9/4) -- OES of 2.306
10. Italy: 12 (4/5/3) -- OES of 1.006
Again, I think you at least have to do the table by gold medals, with silvers being the first tiebreaker and bronzes as the second.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, I think the best way to do this would be some sort of "medals-points" deal. It is totally ridiculous to me that a team that wins gold medals in, say, four of the dozen or so judo weight classes or four swimming heats is having four-times-as-successful an Olympics as the team that wins one of the two gold medals awarded in basketball or water polo.