London 2012 early winners
A week into the London 2012 Olympic Games and we already have some verdicts. Three sports have run all their events, and GSN is able to give its exclusive ranking of nations for each one of them.
We begin, alphabetically, with Archery. Only 12 nations scored points and even fewer, 7, clinched medals in what were close-run and exciting events.
South Korea took the GSN mantle (and 3 golds and a bronze with it) over relative surprise Mexico, powered by its Women Team (a silver and a bronze in the individual event). The USA were a disappointing third (a silver medal and several placements), followed by Italy (the other remaining gold medal winner), Japan, China, Russia, Taiwan, France and Denmark.
Judo is much more popular and busy with events: 34 countries scored points but the winner was never in doubt. Japan doubled their 2011 World Championships success with a comfortable Olympic victory over South Korea and France. Other countries were some distance away from the winners, notably Russia in fourth place, Germany in eighth, China tenth, and disappointing USA (15th) and Great Britain (33rd).
Curiously, the Japanese did not win outright in either gender. They shared success with South Korea in the Men, and finished second to relative surprise France in the Women. As often is the case, Japan’s victory was built on strength in depth and not by gold medals alone.
The third sport is Road Cycling. Great Britain were tipped to win and they did, though in a somewhat less spectacular fashion than expected. Veteran Vinokourov of Kazakhstan took gold in the Men’s Road Race, where Team GBR was nowhere near the medals. The Cycling Lions came back with a vengeance in the Individual Time Trial race, gold to Bradley Wiggins and bronze to Chris Froome but it was a close run affair overall. GBR led the ranking by 12 points over the USA (gold with Kirstin Armstrong in the Women’s Ind. Time Trial) and 17 over Germany, with Kazakhstan 4th some way behind, then Colombia, Russia, the Netherlands (gold with Marianne Vos in the Women’s Road Race), Italy, Australia and Norway in tenth place.
