Day 9 Standings -- with OES

As Eric has already indicated, the U.S. had a pretty grim day. The Americans picked up only six medals, while China gathered eight. So China retakes the lead in both gold medals and total medals. Both of the Big Two saw their Olympics Efficiency Scores ("OES") fall somewhat, although the U.S. score fell by a greater amount. If both countries were to maintain their current OES's for the rest of the games, China would finish with 117 medals to 115 for the United States.

The total medal count will, of course, draw much of the attention down the stretch. But you might also keep an eye on the total number of gold medals won by the United States. Since 1956, there have only been three summer Olympics where the United States won 40 or more gold medals:

In 1968, we won 45 gold medals in Mexico City. That was also the last time we finished ahead of the USSR in the medal count. (I think the 1968 team was probably the best U.S. Olympics team ever. I don't have the data to calculate an exact OES for that team, but I'm pretty sure it exceeded 0.72, and we've never come close to that mark since in a non-boycotted Olympics.)

In 1984, we won 83 gold medals in Los Angeles (but the Soviets weren't there).

In 1996, we won 44 gold medals in Atlanta.

So winning 40 or more gold medals outside North America would be pretty impressive. (Right now, our gold-medal only OES is 0.682 -- which is ahead of our performance in that category in every Olympics since 1984, and also ahead of our performance in 1976 and 1972.

Meanwhile, Britain continues to shine. Their OES is now higher than China's, which is extraordinarily good for a country from Western Europe. And they have opened up a huge gap on France and Germany. However, I would point out that while the Brits are ecstatic over their performance -- and particularly over the fact that they have won many more medals than Australia -- the Aussies are still doing quite well under the total medals OES:

1. China: 61 total medals (30G/17S/14B) -- OES of 1.518
2. United States: 60 (28/14/18) -- OES of 0.470
3. Great Britain: 37 (16/11/10) -- OES of 1.645
4. Russia: 35 (4/16/15) -- OES of 3.881
5. Japan: 27 (2/12/13) -- OES of 0.611
6. France: 25 (8/8/9) -- OES of 1.160
7. Germany: 22 (5/10/7) -- OES of 0.760
T8. Australia: 20 (1/12/7) -- OES of 2.321
T8. S. Korea: 20 (10/4/6) -- OES of 1.976
10. Italy: 14 (6/5/3) -- OES of 0.827