Olympic Medal Count 2012: Great Britain Living Up to Host Country Expectations

Home-field advantage comes with heightened expectations.

More specifically, a hope for 2012 Olympic medal count dominance.

While Great Britain’s athletes probably love playing in the land where they grew up, because they’re the host nation, they must take the medal count more seriously than ever. Naturally, in every single event, all eyes are on them which results in added pressure. Up to this point in the Olympic Games, though, the British have fully embraced the stage.

As you can see, Great Britain is fourth in total medals and third in gold.

OLYMPIC MEDAL TRACKER
	China  Total: 64	31	19	14
	United States  Total: 62	28	15	19
	Russia  Total: 41	7	17	17
	Great Britain  Total: 40	18	11	11
	Japan  Total: 28	2	12	14
Full Table and Medal Results »

If the British hold on to their top five position—and considering that they’re seven gold medals ahead of South Korea which boasts the fourth-most golds, that shouldn’t be too difficult—they should be extremely content with their effort as a country.

Since the turn of the century, host nations have racked up the medals at the Olympic Games more times than not. Here’s a quick rundown of how they’ve fared over that time period.

• 2010: Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics and Canada won the most gold medals.
• 2008: Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics and won the most gold medals.
• 2006: Turin hosted the Winter Olympics and Italy won the ninth-most gold medals.
• 2004: Athens hosted the Summer Olympics and Greece won the 15th-most gold medals.
• 2002: Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympics and the United States won the third-most gold medals and second-most total.
• 2000: Sydney hosted the Summer Olympics and Australia won the fourth-most gold medals.

Only two nations—Italy and Greece—failed to finish in the medal-count top five. Great Britain is well on their way to avoiding the same fate. They won’t catch China or Team USA for first place, but sometimes simply staying competitive with the best is an acceptable result.

This is one of those times.

David Daniels is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer.

Follow @TheRealDDaniels