Again, Impy, by the right measurement - each medal value x each medal count - the U.S has been ahead for a few days and I think for most of the Games. I don’t buy the media’s new way of just counting medals.
China’s total is a lot less impressive per capita of course, since they have at least four times the population of the U.S. ... that lets in the comparison of each other nation’s medal total on a per capita basis. On that basis, countries like Australia and Canada probably finished either close to or above the U.S., then how about Jamaica, with a population about 1 per cent of the USA, winning quite a few track medals.
These total medals per country are always presented as being meaningful but without some sort of scaling factor they are meaningless, one would expect Brazil to do better than Uruguay for example. France is going to come out higher than Denmark. It doesn’t mean those are “better” sporting countries. In fact it probably doesn’t mean anything at all.
Congrats to the individuals who won Olympic medals wherever they call home. I watch it more from the point of view of a chance to see top athletic competition, the country stuff is a bit of a bore frankly. The fact that Canada now has the Olympic 200 meter champion does not mean that most of us can run 200 meters faster than you can. I don’t know if we can or not, nor do I care really.
Ahead on Golds I meant. ;-d