Now that the dust has settled on an amazing Paralympic Games, the time has come for analysing and poring over the performance of each nation. While the spotlight will be on the amazing individual feats achieved at London 2012 by the likes of Sarah Storey and David Weir, it’s the overall performance of each nation that reflects how successful or unsuccessful they were. Inevitably, the bigger nations found themselves near the top of the table, while the minnows that brought less than half a dozen athletes with them didn’t bring home any medals, but there were a few shocks.
Medal Winners
Top of the table were China, who won a huge 95 gold medals, finishing on the medal winners’ podium a total of 231 times, more than twice as much as Russia, who came second overall with 36 golds and 102 in total. As for Team GB, they did the home crowds proud, with an impressive 34 golds out of a total of 120 medals. Team GB managed to just edge out their Olympic counterparts in terms of the total of golds they picked up, showing how strong they were compared to other heavyweight performers.
Also in the Top Ten
Also featuring in the top ten were the United States, who despite winning 31 gold medals, only finished sixth in the overall table. Australia, Ukraine, Brazil and Germany also finished in the top ten, which was propped up by a surprise name in the form of the Netherlands. A nation more renowned for its prowess in football and darts than other sports, they managed an impressive 10 golds, with a total of 39 medals.
A little further down the table, you may have got favourable odds on ladbrokes.com for the Republic of Ireland to finish inside the top 20, but they finished 19th, with eight of their 16 medals being gold. Other smaller nations that overachieved included Tunisia, who ended up 14th with nine golds and Cuba, 15th with nine golds out of a total of 17 medals.
Underachievers but Still Inspirational
Among the underachievers was Japan, a traditionally strong performer in Olympic and Paralympic past, who only finished 24th with just five golds to their name. The next Paralympic games in 2016 could see a completely different look to the final medals table, with strong performers such as Germany dropping out of the top ten and other countries like France and Spain moving in the opposite direction, but four years is a long time in athletics.
Ladbrokes.com brought you this round up.