Great Britain beat Germany at the 2008 Olympics

Regardless of whether all Olympic medals are counted, or gold medals only, either way Great Britain have beaten Germany at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

This doesn't happen very often. In fact, of the 21 previous Summer Olympic Games where both GB and Germany (either East or West) have competed, GB have only won 5 compared to Germany's 16. And the last time that GB won was over fifty years ago, back in 1952.

Even if East Germany are discounted for having cheated their way through the 1970s and 80s, still West Germany always beat Great Britain.

In Beijing 2008, Team GB won 19 golds, 47 medals in total, and came fourth in the gold medal rankings after China, U.S., and Russia.

Germany was close behind in fifth, with 16 golds and 41 medals in total.

Incidently, the terms of the Olympic charter forbid the IOC from producing an official ranking of countries. That doesn't stop others compiling such tables though. See Wikipedia: All-time Olympic Games medal table

See also the related TT topic: Beijing 2008 Olympic Games - general chat

Two World Wars, one World Cup... and five Olympics.

Didn't see any of the GB team getting their kit off for playboy though.

Here we go again.

What exactly did Great Britain gain by "winning" two world wars?

Freedom and financial ruin.

It stopped us having to pay taxes to a German government and speak German, oh, hang on a minute...

Shall we keep the theme to the olympics then?

Yeah great 2008 Olympics. Amazing that Britain for it's size shot up to 4th in the medal table in front of Germany and most satisfyingly Australia... even if they reckon that we won most of our medals sitting down.

Nice one.

perhaps more importantly than our friendly & amicable rivalry with all things German, is that we beat the Ozzies!!!

I think I was Olympic material – whenever I was out with my mates and we did a runner from a restaurant I was always the one out in front and that was with a full stomach. I really miss that – maybe we could organize a TT restaurant runner night-out.

Er..EB...looks like the Chinese dont care too much about the charter...Here's the ranking on the official website...Both by gold medals and by total!!

How cute! You know, the US beat them both...combined.

USA! USA! USA!

The EU beat the US!

The EU beat China!!

The EU beat Russia!!!

The EU can beat me.

Congrats GB, yah, who cares. What are the statistics for England, Wales, and Scotland individually please? And the Irish bit as well?

I would hope so:

Population of the USA: ca. 305,000,000. Total medals:110

Population of Germany and GB combined: ca. 144,000,000. Total medals: 88

You should have got 186 medals.

Hahaha, so you did, and congratulations. Thank the flying spaghetti monster I don't have to go drinking with my old English colleagues from my last company any time soon. Look for a surge in public spending on athletes in Australia ahead of next olympics though.

Who cares about bragging rights? It was good business though. :-)

If you look at the medal tally by population, then the Bahamas won. Australia are in a very credible 5th position. Great Britain 25th, Russia 37th, Germany 38th, USA 44th and China 68th

Not exactly, as Great Britain and Germany got 88 medals with two sets of Olympic teams, whereas the US got 110 with only one Olympic team. A comparison would make more sense if GB and Germany would send only one team to the Olympics. But since they don't (and won't)...

USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!

I'm now waiting for the first person to start pointing out birth nationality of medal winning athletes Vs their chosen nationality.

Also did you know there is only one country that has won at least one gold medel in EVERY Olympic Games. That is Great Britain.

The funding for our current success was put in place by John Major when he introduced the Lottery.

I was replying to this post, wasn't my idea to combine them! If you only want to base it on the GB team then the USA should have got 235 medals!

ahhh who gives a stuff about USA vs Britain... or Britain vs the Germans.. or for that matter even the ozzies... fact is nearly everybody beat the French

You should check your figures, mon ami... they won 40 medals.

Which was somewhat less than the Americans, Chinese, British, Germans and Australians... .so yes nearly everybody beat them Mon Ami

this was the first time I was unable to watch any of the O. what did I miss then?

We obviously don't share the same vision of the world we live in.

Sorry to hear you were not very good at maths....

But maybe I should point out I was only talking about nations that may venture onto this forum..

Congratulations though for beating the others... just in case you are french and taking offence to my post.

Vision of the world = maths? Comprehension is certainly not your forte.

yeah sure.. whatever... Somebody is sure uptight today.

There, fixed it for you.

Ahh that'll be Grammar you're on about then. Thanks for fixing it for me.

There's an old rivalry...




Seen today in... Siddeni *doesthesamaranch*

A very funny collection of actual medal counts:



"In the USA, bronze is worth more than gold." hehe

hahaa that's hilarious

That's really quite shocking.

And one things the Chines media are manipulative. The great "chinese Firewall".
In Soviet America medals count you!

Clearly, those American medals tallies were based on overall medal count, not bronze medals. I always thought overall medal count was what people cared about, but apparently it has always been only about the gold medals.

Anyways, the reason Great Britain is doing so well is because they have been dumping money into their athletic progam in preparation for London 2012. Just like China did for these Olympics, and just like Australia did for Sydney. Both of those countries achieved unprecedented success because of political decisions made when (or just after) they were awarded their Olympic games. Canada has already been doing the same for winter sports, which is why we hope to be #1 in Vancouver!!

Didn't Britain do less well in the Athletics than on other disciplines though?
Apart from Ohuruogu, but that was as much a victory for her lawyers, if you ask me.

Is there a table listing the medal count sorted by number of participants from a country? Sorta like the one with the population.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/let-the...9516251969.html

An interesting argument for starting the count in 1952. Makes some points that are worthy of a second thought.

no, not less well than any other, just really really badly compared compared to their targets. At least they got a gold medal in athletics. What did they get in equestrian, judo, archery, etc where they predicted medals?

Well their target was five Athletics medals and they won four, which is only disappointing in view of the unexpected successes in other disciplines.

NUMBER OF ATHLETES AT GAMES PER MEDAL WON

1. Uzbekistan (2)
2. Jamaica (2.95)
3. Panama (3)
3. Togo (3)
5. Zimbabwe (3.25)
6. Afghanistan (4)
7. Indonesia (4.8)
8. Georgia (5.83)
9. US (5.95)
10. Tajikistan (6.5)

Five alternative Olympics medals tables

Unfortunately, last Friday was a slow news day, so the tables don't reflect the final medal totals.

Congratulations, Britain. A sterling (uh... golden?) effort!

This system is skewed against countries that field athletes in collective sports. If Uzbekistan had qualified in football and volleyball, for example, it would be further down the list.

I was wondering if I should mention England not qualifying for this year's European Cup in its very own native and traditional sport of *cough* football but can't really be bothered.

Still, good show all around. At least the athletes can sell their medals to pay off their credit card bills/loans/mortgages - a good example for the rest of the nation.

A fair list would count "contestants" - in the case of team sports only the team itself, not the 11 players (plus like 5 backup) of a soccer team individually.
Of course that becomes problematic again in a number of sports where people participate in like five to ten events.

Hmm... medals won per (contest taken part in times contestants from country x in this contest) ?

If you rank medals won per number of days where the temperature gets above 20° surely Canada would come out on top.

All the ranking methods are skewed in one way or another. You can always come up with some reason why one country appears higher on some arbitrary list than another.

Who cares? Why can't people enjoy the Olympics for the sport?

YOUR COUNTRY IS NOT ANY BETTER BECAUSE YOUR DUDES CAN RUN FASTER THAN OUR DUDES.