Further to my recent Olympics-related post, the 2016 Rio Olympics are now over and the newspaper sports supplements are full of praise for Team GB's impressive tally of 27 gold, 23 silver and 17 bronze medals - and rightfully so. That's two more medals than at London 2012 and 19 medals than the target set for GB athletes.
As a result, we now know that Rio 2016 is the "first time a host country has increased its medal haul at the following Olympics", and that the event was Team GB's best ever Games. But at London 1908, over a mammoth contest lasting 187 days, Team GB won a whopping 146 medals. This now explains the nebulous descriptions "away Games" or "best performance at an Olympics in the modern era". Those calling it the "best ever Games" are clearly keen to dismiss 1908 as either too long ago or with too many variables, subsequent rule-changes or other differences meaning that no comparison with the Olympics of today can be made. Not that the media spend much time explaining such details, of course! Like the geek I am, I trawled through Team GB history for my own explanation.
The "best away Games" tag is simply shorthand for "best-Olympic-Games-ever-except-for-London-1908-which-went-on-for-six-months-so-sort-of-doesn't-count-really". So there you have it! I'll leave it to others to fill you in on how much each medal has cost relative to the funding for different sports, and the comparisons with China in terms of population, area and medals won. I stand corrected; Rio 2016 was Team GB's best ever away Games. Now let's hope the athletes and those whose names we don't yet know can do even better at Tokyo 2020.
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