The BBC reported today that Britain is third in the medals table at Beijing, while the New York Times ranks Britain sixth.
As you can see, the BBC ranks by gold medals, the NYT by total number of medals. Both rankings seem less than fair: one rates only excellence, not a spread of results, the other denies that golds are, in everyone’s eyes, worth more than silver or bronze. So I recalculated the results using a University-entrance system of 3 points for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze. Here is what emerges:
| gold | silver | bronze | total | points | ||
| 1 | China | 39 | 14 | 14 | 67 | 159 |
| 2 | USA | 22 | 24 | 26 | 72 | 140 |
| 3 | Australia | 11 | 10 | 12 | 33 | 65 |
| 4 | Russia | 8 | 13 | 15 | 36 | 65 |
| 5 | Great Britain | 12 | 7 | 8 | 27 | 58 |
| 6 | Germany | 9 | 7 | 7 | 23 | 48 |
| 7 | South Korea | 8 | 9 | 6 | 23 | 48 |
| 8 | France | 4 | 11 | 13 | 28 | 47 |
| 9 | Japan | 8 | 5 | 7 | 20 | 41 |
| 10 | Italy | 6 | 6 | 6 | 18 | 36 |
Edit
I don't think this post on the BBC website was inspired by this blog, but it picks up the same theme.
