Day 8 Standings -- with OES

We're almost halfway through the Olympics, and the Olympic Efficiency Score ("OES") for the United States -- while very low compared to other major nations -- is higher than our OES in any Olympics since 1996. Let's hope we can keep it up.

Meanwhile, Britain is really taking advantage of its opportunity to play hosts. Today, the Brits had a wonderful day -- taking golds in the heptathlon, long jump, and 10,000 meters, among other things. Their OES is now almost as high as China's.

This is the closest medals race I can ever remember. China racked up 11 medals today -- and the U.S. went out and got 11 medals themselves. As far as I can tell, no one knows how the medals race will come out, because no one in the West knows very much about the Chinese Olympic team:

1. United States: 54 total medals (26G/13S/15B) -- OES of 0.495

2. China: 53 (25/16/12) -- OES of 1.544

3. Great Britain: 29 (14/7/8) -- OES of 1.509

4. Russia: 28 (3/16/9) -- OES of 3.634

5. Japan: 24 (2/10/12) -- OES of 0.636

6. France: 22 (8/6/8) -- OES of 1.195

7. Germany: 21 (5/10/6) -- OES of 0.849

8. Australia: 20 (1/12/7) -- OES of 2.717

9. S. Korea: 17 (9/3/5) -- OES of 1.966

10. Italy: 13 (5/5/3) -- OES of 0.899