Hamish Bond and Eric Murray are congratulated by the Great Britain rowers after winning gold in the men's pair at Eton Dorney.

Hamish Bond and Eric Murray celebrate after winning gold in the men's pair at Eton Dorney.

Hamish Bond and Eric Murray celebrate after winning gold in the men's pair at Eton Dorney.

Mahe Drysdale feels the agony once more but with gold this time at the London Olympics 2012.

New Zealand rowing pair of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray celebrate their gold medals.

Eric Murray celebrates after winning gold in the men's pair at Eton Dorney.

Mahe Drysdale feels the agony once more but with gold this time at the London Olympics 2012.

Mahe Drysdale wins gold in his final in the men's single sculls at Eton Dorney.

Eric Murray show the relief after winning gold in the men's pair at Eton Dorney.

Hamish Bond and Eric Murray celebrate after winning gold in the men's pair at Eton Dorney.

Eric Murray show the relief after winning gold in the men's pair at Eton Dorney.

New Zealand rowing pair of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray celebrate their gold medals.

Eric Murray with his son Zac after winning the gold.

Mahe Drysdale relaxes with a well earned burger after scoring the rowing gold.

Andrej Synek (Cze) and Alan Campbell (GBR) hold up New Zealand's gold medal winner Mahe Drysdale after the medal ceremony.

New Zealand's gold medal rowers have pushed the country to the top of the population-based Olympic medal ranking table, and Australia's not too happy about it.



Victory in the rowing pairs and single events overnight, along with a cycling bronze for the men's pursuit team, took the Kiwi medal tally to three gold and three bronze medals.

In contrast to the joy in this country at the performance of our athletes, many Australians are glumly contemplating their meagre - for them - haul of one gold, nine silver and four bronze.

So deep is the despair that official free-to-air Australian Olympic broadcaster Channel 9 avoided showing New Zealand's charge up the medal table, which took this country to tenth at one stage before settling at 12th by the end of the day.

1 of 12 Reuters Liz Cmabage of Australia throws down the first ever slam dunk by a female at an Olympic Games. 2 of 12 Getty Images Gold number 17 for Michael Phelps as he wins the 100m butterfly. 3 of 12 Getty Images Diego Ruiz of Spain and Carsten Schlangen of Germany collapse after the heats of the 1500m. 4 of 12 Getty Images Prince William and Katherine cheer on Rebecca Adlington in the final of the 800m freestyle. 5 of 12 Reuters Britain's Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas, Steven Burke and Peter Kennaugh compete in the track cycling men's team pursuit first round heats. 6 of 12 IAIN McGREGOR/Fairfax NZ New Zealand rowing pair of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray celebrate their gold medals. 7 of 12 Reuters Switzerland's Roger Federer (L) embraces Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro after defeating him in their men's singles tennis semi-final match. 8 of 12 Getty Images Gold medalist Dong Dong of China competes in the Men's Trampoline. 9 of 12 Reuters Egypt's Khalil K Abir Abdelrahman falls after failed attempt during the women's 75Kg weightlifting competition at the ExCel venue in London. 10 of 12 IAIN MCGREGOR/Fairfax NZ Mahe Drysdale wins gold in his final in the men's single sculls at Eton Dorney. 11 of 12 Reuters Spain's Eloy Teruel, Sebastian Mora, David Muntaner and Albert Torres compete in the track cycling men's team pursuit. 12 of 12 Reuters The British crowd were out in force at the equestrian individual dressage at Greenwich park in London.

Its medal table had only the nine top countries, then a gap down to Australia. And some pundits have suggested pooling the wins for Team Oceania, to save Aussie red faces.

Sydney Morning Herald sports journalist Brad Walter was unimpressed.

"Can't believe Channel 9 only showed top 9 in medal tally plus Australia, then admitted we didn't want to be reminded NZ were 10th," he tweeted.

"Ch9 should be showing NZ gold, not pretending it didn't happen."

On the traditional table - ranked by gold medals, then silver, then bronze - New Zealand ended the latest day's competition just behind South Africa, while Australia ended in 19th place.

The US is leading with 21 gold, 10 silver and 12 bronze, while China is second with 20 gold, 13 silver and nine bronze.

According to an alternative ranking system, New Zealand is first when calculated on a population basis, 11th when the table is based on GDP, and 22nd when based on team size.

The alternative tables are a co-production of the Royal Statistical Society, statisticians from Imperial College in London, and The Guardian's Datablog section.



Apparently these guys did not want to make anything too easy, so they say they have worked out how many medals each country would have won based on a weighted count.



Using that approach, when the medal count is population based, New Zealand would have won 21 gold medals by now and 12.6 bronze for a total medal haul of 33.6, while Slovenia would be second with 14.9 gold and 17.9 bronze for a total of 32.8.



Australia would have 1.4 gold, 13.6 silver and 3.3 bronze, and China would have 0.5 gold, 0.3 silver, and 0.1 bronze, while the US would be on 2.1 gold, 1.1 silver and 0.7 bronze.



When based on GDP, Mongolia would be top with 42.5 silver and 22.9 bronze, followed by North Korea with 27.6 gold - the top gold medal count - and 4.9 bronze.



New Zealand would have 5.8 gold and 4.2 bronze, Australia would have 0.2 gold, 2.4 silver and 0.6 bronze, China would have 0.8 gold, 0.7 silver and 0.2 bronze, while the US would be on 0.4 gold, 0.2 silver and 0.2 bronze.



Statistics New Zealand is working out medals per head of population using a simpler approach, working out the number of medals per million people.

But as it is only updating its tables on working days, the overnight New Zealand wins haven't been added.