This Olympics, I’m ruefully told, was about the changing of the guard. It was the symbol of an emergent China and the waning of the West; the representation, in red shorts, swimsuits and tights, of a new order in sports. Yet for all its novelty, the new order seems little different from the old.

Throughout much of the last century, the nations that won the biggest share of Olympic gold were either rich countries  with disposable income to spend on sport  or autocratic states where sports programs usually involved sequestering children and pumping them up with experimental drugs. If middle income, nonaligned or any others wanted to compete for the bronze, it was O.K. The blocs were busy performing their part in the cold war.

Today, the set of affluent and despotic is somewhat different than it was 20 years ago. But the Olympic rule of thumb still holds. By my count, the Soviet bloc won 128 gold medals at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, the last Games in which there was a Soviet bloc. The “West” won about 97, ordered roughly along the lines of economic clout. Everyone else won 16. The demise of communism put much of the Soviets’ former trove up for grabs. Yet the Olympics have retained their spirit: it’s still the autocratic and rich who win gold.

From 1996 through 2004 the United States vaulted past Russia to take the top spot in gold. Going into the weekend, it was in second place, one better than it was in Seoul. Germany’s fifth place in Beijing was the same as West Germany’s 20 years ago. The entire Soviet Union was in first place in Korea. Russia on its own is likely to be fourth this time.