LANE ONE: Paris 2024 scoring review: U.S. and China stayed on top, and the French went crazy!

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● Schedule: No TSX on Wednesday, but back Thursday with more analysis on Paris, in the pool and on the track! ●

For many years, the International Olympic Committee would not release formal medal counts for the Olympic Games, insisting the competitions were between athletes and not nations.

This was true even as late as the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, with fully computerized scoring. So for news media who wanted a medal count list, they could not get it at the massive results racks in the Main Press Center, but had to walk to the far corner of the floor and request it from the Xerox copy center, where it was cheerfully provided.

No such issues now, where the medal table is offered within the official results system. But even so, trying to determine team results by medals only is simply silly. Even the IOC agrees with this, as it presents diplomas to the top finishers, beginning with the Athens Games in 1896. The number awarded was expanded in 1923 to the top three, to the top six finishers from 1949, and to eight in 1981.

It’s a much better way to discern true team achievements and The Sports Examiner has been keeping score at Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and now Paris 2024, using the familiar NCAA track & field scoring system of 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 points, giving extra weight for gold and silver finishes.

On that basis, the Paris scoring – in full – looked like this, across 329 events and 2,634 places, including ties:

● Ranked 1-10:
1,297.0 United States (223 event scorers)
947.5, China (157)
747.5, France (149)
725.0, Great Britain (136)
585.5, Australia (109)
580.0, Italy (119)
564.0, Japan (114)
515.0, Germany (117)
418.5, Netherlands (78)
362.0, Canada (80)

● 11-20:
355.5, South Korea (66)
294.5, Spain (68)
260.0, New Zealand (53)
251.0, Hungary (51)
245.5, Brazil (56)
174.5, Ukraine (41)
163.0, Switzerland (42)
155.0, Poland (40)
146.5, Belgium (33)
145.0, Uzbekistan (28)

● 21-30:
134.5, Sweden (27)
125.0, Iran (21)
121.0, Norway (27)
115.0, Kenya (20)
110.4, Romania (21)
105.5, Denmark (24)
105.5, Turkey (27)
99.0, Ireland (22)
98.0, Czech Republic (24)
92.5, Mexico (24)

● 31-40:
91.5, India (23)
88.5, Greece (19)
86.0, Kazakhstan (20)
86.0, Ethiopia (21)
82.0, Croatia (17)
80.0, Serbia (20)
79.0, Cuba (15)
79.0, Chinese Taipei (20)
77.5, Bulgaria (16)
76.0, Jamaica (19)

● 41-50:
75.5, Georgia (12)
74.5, Azerbaijan (17)
69.0, Colombia (18)
67.5, Austria (14)
66.0, Thailand (14)
65.5, Egypt (18)
64.0, Israel (11)
64.0, South Africa (12)
60.5, Portugal (14)
56.5, Ecuador (11)

● 51-60:
55.0, Belarus (12 as “neutrals”)
52.0, Kyrgyzstan (10)
50.5, Lithuania (13)
49.5, Armenia (11)
49.0, North Korea (9)
47.0, Slovenia (9)
44.5, Philippines (8)
44.0, Indonesia (8)
43.0, Tunisia (9)
41.0, Hong Kong (7)

● 61-70:
37.0, Bahrain (5)
36.0, Algeria (6)
35.0, Argentina (9)
34.0, Moldova (7)
34.0, Slovakia (8)
33.0, Mongolia (12)
32.0, Dominican Republic (8)
27.5, Peru (7)
27.5, Malaysia (6)
23.5, Nigeria (9)

● 71-80:
23.0, Botswana (4)
23.0, Chile (4)
22.5, Tajikistan (6)
22.5, Morocco (5)
20.5, Finland (9)
20.0, Estonia (7)
18.0, St. Lucia (2)
18.0, Russia (3 as “neutrals”)
17.0, Kosovo (3)
16.0, Guatemala (2)

● 81-90:
16.0, Grenada (3)
15.0, Venezuela (7)
15.0, Puerto Rico (3)
14.0, Refugee Olympic Team (4)
14.0, Qatar (3)
12.5, Cyprus (3)
12.5, Latvia (4)
12.0, Albania (3)
10.5, Cote d’Ivoire (5)
10.5, Jordan (2)

● 91-100:
10.0, Dominica (1)
10.0, Pakistan (1)
10.0, Uganda (4)
9.5, Zambia (3)
8.5, Singapore (2)
8.0, Panama (1)
8.0, Fiji (1)
7.0, Vietnam (2)
7.0, Trinidad & Tobago (2)
6.0, Cape Verde (1)

● 101-111:
5.0, Costa Rica (1)
5.0, St. Vincent & the Grenadines (1)
4.5, Paraguay (2)
4.0, British Virgin Islands (1)
4.0, Zimbabwe (2)
4.0, Syria (1)
4.0, Papua New Guinea (1)
4.0, Burundi (1)
3.5, Lebanon (1)
3.5, San Marino (1)
3.5, Saudi Arabia (1)

● 112-119:
3.0, Iraq (1)
3.0, Bahamas (1)
3.0, Andorra (1)
3.0, Bermuda (1)
2.0, Lesotho (1)
2.0, Liberia (1)
2.0, Barbados (1)
2.0, Kiribati (1)

● 120-124:
1.5, Bosnia and Herzegovina (1)
1.5, Niger (1)
1.5, United Arab Emirates (1)
1.0, Aruba (1)
1.0, Cayman Islands (1)

So, a total of 123 National Olympic Committees – including Russia and Belarus – plus the Refugee Olympic Team scored points, out of 206 NOCs total. That’s 59.7%, not bad, and much better than the 45.1% of NOCs which won medals.

How does all of this compare with Rio and Tokyo? Well:

● In terms of medals, there were athletes from 93 NOCs – including Belarus and Russia – which won medals in Paris, plus the Refugee Olympic Team, which won its first-ever medal, in boxing. Exactly the same in Tokyo: 93 NOCs won medals, no change.

In terms of points, 123 NOCs scored points in Paris, vs. 121 in Tokyo, again, almost identical. And in Rio in 2016, there were 120 NOCs who scored points, again about the same. No real movement there. It is worth noting that there were 306 events in 2016, 339 in 2021 in Tokyo and 329 in Paris.

● Russia scored 602.5 points at Rio 2016 and 789.5 in Tokyo, with more events. Having essentially no Russian athletes in Paris was a help to multiple countries, notably China, but both the U.S. and China performed more-or-less as they did in Tokyo, with or without the Russians:

United States:
● 2016: 1,280.6 points and 222 scorers
● 2021: 1,291.0 points and 230 scorers
● 2024: 1,297.0 points and 223 scorers

China:
● 2016: 824.5 points and 150 scorers
● 2021: 939.7 points and 157 scorers
● 2024: 947.5 points and 157 scorers (the same!)

However, U.S. medal production was up in Paris, with 126 total medals (40-44-42) compared to 113 (39-41-33) in Tokyo and even more than in a home-hemisphere Games in Rio, at 121 (46-37-38).

Same for China, which collected 91 medals in Paris (40-27-24), up from 89 in Tokyo – a home-hemisphere Games (38-32-19) – and well ahead of 70 in Rio (26-18-26).

● The French went nuts. It sent by far its biggest-ever team at 573 athletes – second only to the U.S. – and produced 64 medals (16-26-22), the most since it hosted in 1900! And the points and placements reflect this surge:

● 2016: 513.0 points and 108 scorers
● 2021: 460.0 points and 101 scorers
● 2024: 747.5 points and 149 scorers

That’s amazing: 62.5% more points and 47.5% more scorers that just three years before. But this was to be, for the most part, expected. In Tokyo, the Japanese team scored 705.5 points, 63.1% ahead of its Rio total– about the same as France – and had 136 scorers vs. 88 in Rio, up 54.5%.

(Before you go berserk thinking about what the U.S. might do in 2028, remember that the U.S. team somehow managed to win less medals at its last home Olympic Games – Atlanta 1996 – than it won in Barcelona in 1992, 108 to 101.)

● The award for consistency goes to Great Britain, whose government provides most of the funding for its Olympic team. After the high of hosting the London 2012 Games, Team GB has remained highly relevant:

● 2016: 759.0 points and 133 scorers
● 2021: 728.5 points and 137 scorers
● 2024: 725.0 points and 136 scorers

In terms of total impact, the U.S. retained its position vs. the rest of the world in Paris, but China edged up once again:

United States:
● 2016: 10.73% of all points available
● 2021: 9.76%
● 2024: 10.10%

China:
● 2016: 6.91% of all points available
● 2021: 7.11%
● 2024: 7.38%

The top ten scorers in Paris totaled 6,742 points or 52.5% of all points scored in the Games, just a little higher than the 52.2% in Tokyo in 2021.

The U.S., China and the French had Games to remember, but the numbers show that their experience in Paris was right in line with Tokyo, where Japan went wild, just as the French did this time.

Rich Perelman
Editor

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