London 2012: Better for Great Britain than 1908 despite fewer gold medals
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By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 13 August 2012 The past few days we've heard that Great Britain has enjoyed its best Olympic medal haul since 1908 but in relative terms London 2012 was much better for the hosts. In 1908, there were only 2,008 competitors from 22 nations competing, and Britain provided a third of those by herself. So one might reasonably have expected Britain to win a lot of the 110 gold medals on offer, on home turf and in home water, in events as varied as tug of war and motorboat racing. Britain did indeed win lots of golds, 56 of them, or just more than half on offer. So that's 51 per cent of golds with 34 per cent of the athletes, so Britain did 151 per cent as well as she should have done. Here's another way of thinking about it. If the 110 medals had been split fairly between all the 2,008 competitors, then each nation should have won 5.48 golds for each 100 athletes. Which means Britain, with 676 athletes, should have won 37 gold medals. Instead GB won 51 medals - again, that's 151 per cent of what would be expected. At London 2012, when the size of the competition is factored in, Great Britain thrashed that performance by doing 192 per cent as well as should be expected.
London 2012: Better for Great Britain than 1908 despite fewer gold medals
London 2012: Better for Great Britain than…
London 2012: Better for Great Britain than 1908 despite fewer gold medals
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 13 August 2012 The past few days we've heard that Great Britain has enjoyed its best Olympic medal haul since 1908 but in relative terms London 2012 was much better for the hosts. In 1908, there were only 2,008 competitors from 22 nations competing, and Britain provided a third of those by herself. So one might reasonably have expected Britain to win a lot of the 110 gold medals on offer, on home turf and in home water, in events as varied as tug of war and motorboat racing. Britain did indeed win lots of golds, 56 of them, or just more than half on offer. So that's 51 per cent of golds with 34 per cent of the athletes, so Britain did 151 per cent as well as she should have done. Here's another way of thinking about it. If the 110 medals had been split fairly between all the 2,008 competitors, then each nation should have won 5.48 golds for each 100 athletes. Which means Britain, with 676 athletes, should have won 37 gold medals. Instead GB won 51 medals - again, that's 151 per cent of what would be expected. At London 2012, when the size of the competition is factored in, Great Britain thrashed that performance by doing 192 per cent as well as should be expected.