Russia top European nations at Olympic Games | 14.08.2012

A cursory glance at the medals table shows that Russia is still king of track and field in Europe. With a total of 18 medals, eight of them gold, Russia outstripped hosts Great Britain who could muster no more than six overall, four of them gold.

But there is an imbalance in Russia’s tally with seven out of the eight golds going to the women’s side and only one being won by a man, the 50km walk.

Compared to Beijing, Russia did better this time round because in the Chinese capital they only took six gold despite winning the same number of medals. In Athens the tally was six gold but their total of 20 medals overall was higher than Beijing or London.

In Athens, Britain was again second strongest European nation, but got a poor return of only four medals, three of them gold while in Beijing the number of gold medals dropped to one, but they repeated the overall total of four.

Europe wide, there has been a decrease in medals won compared to Athens and Beijing. Since the Games in the Greek capital, the total has changed from 67 to 61 in Beijing and a 49 in London.

However, there have been some individual success stories. Britain’s four golds is the highest number of golds of the three Games. In Athens they won three and in Bejing only one.

Germany did far better in London with a total of eight medals compared to one in Beijing and two in Athens.

Overall Ranking	Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
2	RUSSIA	8	5	5	18
4	GREAT BRITAIN 1 N.I.	4	1	1	6
7	GERMANY	1	4	3	8
9	FRANCE	1	1	0	2
9	POLAND	1	1	0	2
9	TURKEY	1	1	0	2
15	CZECH REPUBLIC	1	0	1	2
16	CROATIA	1	0	0	1
16	HUNGARY	1	0	0	1
24	UKRAINE	0	1	2	3
26	SLOVENIA	0	1	0	1
33	ESTONIA	0	0	1	1
33	FINLAND	0	0	1	1
33	ITALY	0	0	1	1
		19	15	15	49