Medal table how does it work

In this case, a silver and bronze medal count the same as the gold medal - is a silver or bronze really worth as much as a gold medal? Certainly not to the athlete. There are numerous possible other ways of ranking success at the Olympics, with some of the alternative medal tally ranking systems having merit. A more extreme system that has been tried is to count all gold medals won, so the results from team sports count the number of individual medals given out.

This totally biases countries which win medals in the team sports. Then there are weighted systems which assign differing amounts of points to each of the gold, silver and bronze medals. You can see a discussion of the weighted methods which compares a few variations using this method.

Other ranking methods have factored in demographic factors such as population size and economic factors such as gross domestic product GDP. You can see a discussion of the demographic methods.

Below are listed quite a few alternative medal ranking systems, and a discussion of any differences that they may make. Here are some of the ranking systems that have been devised. A weighted system of some sort seems like the best system, but it is not as simple to implement as either the gold first or total medals method. Some of the weighted ranking systems only vary slightly, but can make a significant difference in the order on some tables.

See the comparisons of the most successful countries at the Olympics using the weighted points and demographic systems, and the same using the all-time medal list.

Read on to find out. For instance, a country that has won three gold medals is ranked above a country that has won two. A country that has won three gold and five silver medals is ranked above a country that has won three gold and four silver medals, and a country that has won three gold, five silver, and ten bronze medals is ranked above a country that has won three gold, five silver and nine bronze medals.

It is worth noting that the method which differentiates by gold, silver, and bronze is considered the traditional format and is used by the International Olympic Committee IOC. The United States finished first in the most recent medal table at Rio , with Great Britain, China, Russia, and Germany comprising the rest of the top five. Host nation Brazil ranked 13th, with Tokyo hosts Japan coming in sixth. Country who finished first in medal table and medal total. China G: 48 S: 22 B: 30 Total: As highlighted in the table above, the United States have topped the medal table at five of the last six Olympics, as well as 17 of the 27 Olympics to date.

Both the medal haul and percentage of gold medals required to top the medal table has gradually decreased in recent decades. Discounting these, at the last eight Olympics the country that finished first in the medal table has won an average of Of the last eight countries to top the medal table, an average of Perhaps unsurprisingly, this highlights that to stand a chance of finishing first in the medal table, countries need to ensure that a significant quantity of their total medals won are golds.

In terms of athlete performance, the last eight countries to top the medal table sent an average of athletes to the Olympics, who returned an average of 0. For example at Sochi , USA won a total of 28 medals the second highest amount of medals but were fourth in the table because Norway and Canada won more golds. The IOC does not consider its sorting of nations as an official system and in the USA medal tables are published by the total number of medals won.

Alongside Lizzy Yarnold securing gold in the skeleton, Great Britain also came home with a silver and two bronze medals. There is a chance that this may go up to five medals after two Russian teams were disqualified following the McLaren Report which would mean that the four-man bobsleigh team would win the bronze medal. Great Britain are expected to bring back five medals with the target set for between four and