Five alternative Olympics medals tables

The most commonly used Olympics medals table is based on the number of gold medals and it puts China top and Great Britain third. But what happens if other factors are taken into account?

Much has been made of the Great Britain team's lofty position in third place in the Olympics medals table.

That is based on the number of gold medals, with the number of silver and bronze medals only counting when two countries have the same number of golds.

"We have won one gold medal in the last 48 hours and our six-gold advantage has almost disappeared entirely"
BBC's Matt Slater
Official medals tableOlympics blog: Battle for third

This system counts against countries like France which, as of 1000 BST on Friday morning, had enjoyed 32 podium finishes but only a handful of wins.

Maybe with this in mind, and half an eye on China, media in the US have been publishing a table of total medals won, regardless of colour, and that puts the US top.

Here are five alternative ways to interpret how countries rank, taking into account gold, silver and bronze, population size, gross domestic product and size of the Olympic team. The medal tallies were counted at 1000 BST on Friday.

TOTAL MEDALS WON

POINTS SCORED (THREE FOR GOLD, TWO FOR SILVER, ONE FOR BRONZE)

POPULATION PER MEDAL

GDP - BILLION DOLLARS PER MEDAL

NUMBER OF ATHLETES AT GAMES PER MEDAL WON

Sources include the CIA Factbook and the World Bank.

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
Olympics
Other ways to measure Olympics success
CIA World Factbook
The World Bank
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