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 table Olympics 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 RANK COUNTRY TOTAL 1 United States 100 2 China 83 3 Russia 53 =4 Australia 41 =4 Great Britain 41 =6 France 33 =6 Germany 33 8 South Korea 26 =9 Japan 24 =9 Italy 24 POINTS SCORED (THREE FOR GOLD, TWO FOR SILVER, ONE FOR BRONZE) RANK COUNTRY TOTAL 1 China 212 2 United States 190 3 Russia 101 4 Great Britain 89 5 Australia 77 6 Germany 67 =7 France 56 =7 South Korea 56 9 Japan 48 10 Italy 45 POPULATION PER MEDAL RANK COUNTRY TOTAL 1 Bahamas 307,451 2 Jamaica 311,592 3 Slovenia 401,542 4 New Zealand 463,717 5 Australia 502,459 6 Armenia 593,717 7 Belarus 645,717 8 Estonia 653,803 9 Norway 663,499 10 Lithuania 713,041 GDP - BILLION DOLLARS PER MEDAL RANK COUNTRY TOTAL 1 North Korea 0.36 2 Jamaica 0.53 3 Zimbabwe 0.85 4 Armenia 1.28 5 Georgia 1.29 6 Tajikistan 1.40 7 Krygzstan 1.41 8 Mongolia 1.57 9 Togo 2.21 10 Belarus 2.46 NUMBER OF ATHLETES AT GAMES PER MEDAL WON RANK COUNTRY TOTAL 1 Uzbekistan 2 2 Jamaica 2.95 3 Panama 3 3 Togo 3 5 Zimbabwe 3.25 6 Afghanistan 4 7 Indonesia 4.8 8 Georgia 5.83 9 US 5.95 10 Tajikistan 6.5 Sources include the CIA Factbook and the World Bank.



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