And you thrashed China in medals per capita, the only really meaningful international comparison.
Unfortunately, we were all thrashed by Bermuda. And in the overall table, the UK and US were also-rans, whether in open contest or in a contest restricted to countries with more than 10m people and thus many competitors. We both appear near the top mostly because we have large populations, not because we are relatively good at sports.
India made the mistake of winning a gold medal, which dooms it to last place on the medals table.
On another measure, the UK came top for gold medals in different sports. Someone, somewhere, realised it was as good to win golds for tiddly winks as for 100m. And so we win golds in sports no one else knows exist.
Countries that win golds in swimming and gymnastics, on the other hand, are cheating. They give you a gold in swimming just for figuring out how to put on one of those little caps they wear. And in gymnastics, you can retire from the sport and then make a medal-winning come-back during the same Olympic Games because there are so many medals to be had.
If the rowers were smart, they'd have weight classes for rowing, and if the basketballers thought along similar lines they'd have height-restricted teams, with pygmies at the base. Athletes should be treated like horses. They should all either carry weights so they weigh the same, or people of different weights should race one another.
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