Bertrand Gille (left) and Didier Dinart helped snare the gold medal for the French handball team at London 2012. According to current measures of assessing health, Dinart's BMI (26.8) was well into the overweight category. Bertrand's, at 28, was approaching obese – indeed, before 1998, when the US National Institutes of Health pushed its malleable definition of obesity from 27 to 30, a US doctor might have had sharp words for him about his condition.



Our measures of BMI are all based on data provided by Olympic Broadcasting Services and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.



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With a BMI over 27, Christine Ohuruogu runs pretty fast for a person who would have been considered obese before 1998. She won the silver medal in the 400-metre dash for Great Britain – here she is competing in the 4 x 400-metre relay.



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Had they been mere mortals, three out of these four British Olympic cyclists – from left to right, Shanaze Reade (BMI 26.2), Chris Hoy (27.2) and Liam Phillips (26.2) – would've been told by their doctors to watch their calories and take a little bit of exercise. Only Geraint Thomas's (far left) BMI of 21.2 would let him off the hook.



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According to one US system of categorising BMI, judoka Ricardo Blas Jr of Guam (in white) is "super-obese". His BMI (63.7) is far in excess of 40 – considered the cut-off between obesity and morbid obesity. An elite judo training regime would make most of us pass out.



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