London 2012: who won how much and why

Turnover was the leitmotif of the Games of the XXX Olympiad. Few disciplines confirmed old trends and most discovered new champions, as many sports are in the middle of a generational shift. Notable examples are swimming and cycling, but stunners have also come from athletics, diving, fencing, and football. While a discussion of the medal table isn't a full analysis of the current worldwide state of sports, it is still a valuable factual basis for such an analysis to rest.

To begin, below are the top 20 positions in the final medal count, ordered by number of total medals (as I think it should be) and not by number of golds (as many improperly do). Click on the picture to enlarge.

Some quick facts are immediately evident:

• The USA takes back the Olympics as China's home court advantage wanes. Depending on how you look at it, Beijing 2008 (see that medal table here) was either won by China or closely contested with the USA.

• China retain a solid second place, regardless, and win medals in more disciplines than any other country. This is yet more evidence of the nationwide effort, surely mandated and perhaps immoral, to raise the bar across the board. After all, this is the least you would expect from a nation of 1.3 billion individuals.

• As usual, the home country takes more than would be expected otherwise. A mere 16 years ago, at Atlanta 1996, team GB had only won one gold and a total of fifteen medals. Quite the far cry from the third place overall in the home Olympics! (By contrast, China had built up its leadership for three or four editions before Beijing, though of course the two efforts are incomparable; see above).

• No African nation is present in the top 20, the highest-ranked being Kenya at #23. Conversely, every other continent is multiply represented: 10 nations for Europe, 4 for the Americas, 4 for Asia (including the Middle East), and 2 for Oceania. It's also noteworthy that the first Caribbean nation, Jamaica, ranks in at #21... unless we consider Cuba one such nation, and we shouldn't.

• Russia is still the top European country, no doubt due in part to the remains of the Soviet sports program. However, if you only count countries that belong to the EU, then Germany, France, and Italy are the only ones in the top 10, and there are only two more in the top 20. More on the state of European sports in the next section.

• The hosts of the next Olympics, Brazil, show virtually no improvement over Beijing, tallying up the same number of golds (3) and only two more medals overall (17 to 15). I will return to this below, as this is but one element in an alarming downward trend for Brazilian sports.

Of less immediate relevance, but still interesting, are these further facts:

• The rise of Iran? The Persians have have done better than in any previous Olympics, or international sporting event in general, by earning a total of 12 medals, 4 of which were golds. However, all were won in traditionally Eastern-dominated disciplines, such as fighting and weightlifting. And of course, all were won by male athletes, as the very few Iranian women who competed did so primarily for publicity. I guess that one thing to be said for (former and current) communist regimes is that at least they grant substantially equal sporting opportunities to both sexes: you don't see such radical inequality in China, Russia, or even North Korea.

• First-time medalists. A total of 73 countries (out of 204 that have an Olympic Committee) are yet to win an Olympic medal, of any color and in any sport. That's seven fewer than in 2008, as these countries have won their first-ever medal at London 2012: Botswana, Bahrain, Cyprus, Gabon, Grenada, Guatemala, and Uganda.

• By the way, the all-time medal leaderboard has remained unaltered: USA, Soviet Union, Germany, Great Britain, and France remain the top 5. See the full list here.

• United States vs. European Union. Is the EU the real winner of this Olympics? The short answer is no, but it's more complicated. If all the EU member states competed together under one flag, they would have totaled 306 medals, which is thrice as much as the United States, including a whopping 92-46 supremacy in golds (source here). This would be a resounding win population-wise, for the EU has one medal per 1.5 million people and the US has one medal per 3 million people. But this doesn't keep track of competitor limits: in most competitions, each participating country is limited to one, two, or three athletes or teams. And as the EU is made of 27 member states, we can say that it "took" them a competitor limit up to 27 times higher than that of the US to achieve these results. Even taking into account that they won thrice as many medals, the US would have still achieved the same result with roughly 9 times fewer athletes than the EU, which is a definite win for the US. Of course, it's not that clear-cut. If the EU could rely on one central Olympic Committee instead of 27, sports funding would be managed differently and it is entirely possible that the average level would rise, as it tends to do in all large federations  But as it stands, the US still clearly dominates worldwide sports.

• The Jamaica-USA rivalry in sprint running is still alive. It may seem, because of Usain Bolt, that the USA has been lagging behind, but that is false. Jamaica has won twelve medals in sprints, four of each color, and one from almost every discipline: men's and women's 100 and 200, three out of four relays, and the men's hurdles. But the USA has won the same overall number of sprint medals and the same number of sprint golds, though Jamaica has one more silver. So while there's no competition in men's short sprints, the USA still holds water. (Or, if you want to look at the glass as half-empty, you could say that until 12-16 years ago the USA completely dominated sprint running and they no longer do so now).

Finally, these further stats are worth considering, especially as it concerns Brazil:

Best gold-to-inhabitants ratio:

1. Granada: 1 gold for every 105,000 individuals
2. Jamaica: 1 gold for every 1,350,000 individuals
3. New Zealand: 1 gold for every 1,450,000 individuals
4. Slovenia: 1 gold for every 2,000,000 individuals
5. Croatia: 1 gold for every 2,100,000 individuals

Worst gold-to-inhabitants ratio among nations with at least a gold medal

1. Brazil: 1 gold for every 67,200,000 individuals
2. Argentina: 1 gold for every 40,750,000 individuals
3. Turkey: 1 gold for every 37,000,000 individuals
4. Canada: 1 gold for every 34,500,000 individuals
5. Ethiopia: 1 gold for every 31,150,000 individuals

While the former stat doesn't necessarily indicate the "winners" of the Olympiad, the latter definitely indicates the losers. This is especially surprising for Brazil and Argentina, who have a proficient sports tradition. These federations will have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what hasn't worked. The Brazilians have a special interest in improving quickly, but four years isn't enough time to raise a generation of champions, so the home factor may be less relevant come 2016.