Olympic Medal Tally 2012: USA vs. China Race Will Come Down to Last Day of Games

The medal race between the USA and China will come down to the last minute of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. In 2008, China exhibited tremendous success by racking up 100 total medals over the United States’ first-place 110.

They won 15 more gold medals than the U.S., though.

Four years later, it’s the same story with a very similar script.

The United States has been successful in its core sports that it traditionally performs well in, while China has stuck to racking up the medals in their own fashion.

In 2008, Los Angeles Times blogger Philip Hersh identified a “parallel Olympics” being run by the two world powers. His idea was premised by David Wallechinsky, an author of Olympics books.

“What we have here is a parallel Olympics,” Wallechinsky said. “We in the United States are focused on swimming, track and field and basketball, and we hardly notice that China just won five gold medals in sports like badminton, shooting and women’s weightlifting.”

Fast forward back to 2012.

Even after dominating the swimming events for the most part, and a weekend of the opening track and field events, the United States is still trailing China in total and gold medals.

Does the U.S. exude enough dominance in the track and field for it to put them over the top of China, who usually turns out a poor showing on the track? While there are many U.S. favorites to win track events this year, their certainty of victory isn’t like in swimming. The competition isn’t just equal, it’s getting better.

Then there is both men’s and women’s basketball, beach volleyball and women’s soccer. The United States is expected to medal, if not win gold in all of those events, while China will not likely medal.

Again, the U.S. is winning or supposed to win the events it favors.

According to Luciano Barra, a former Italian Olympic Official, China was the pre-Olympics favorite to win the most gold and overall medals. After a week-plus of the Games, he’s changed his mind, according to an AP report.

"The U.S. is improving on their results," Barra said. "Yes, China is still very strong. But I think the U.S. can win the most number of gold and total medals. It's a surprise, but I think that can happen."

Don’t tell that to China, though.

China is still in the lead and doesn’t look it's going to let go of it. As much as the U.S. has been predicted to pull away, China is still in the lead on Day 10.

This one is going to get interesting, and it’s likely going to come down to the final minute of these London Games.

Olympic Medal Leaderboard as of August 6 at 8 a.m. ET

Visit B/R's Standings and Medal Winners Tracker for updated standings!

Olympic Medal Tracker
	China Total: 61	30	17	14
	United States Total: 60	28	14	18
	Great Britain Total: 37	16	11	10
	Russia Total: 35	4	16	15
	Japan Total: 26	2	12	12

 

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