PAC-12 finishes No. 5 among countries at the Olympics

If the PAC-12 was a country, it would have finished fifth in the final medal standings at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The conference finished with more medals (106) than China (88) and more golds (34) than Japan (27) during the two-week competition.

The PAC-12 put out a graphic on Twitter that lists the PAC-12 ias fifth in the Olympic medal count.

If the Conference was a country, it would have finished fifth in the overall medal count.

➡️ https://t.co/2rGTA5roOs

(For medal standings, individual medals won by Pac-12 athletes as part of the same relay, boat or team count as one collective medal.)#OlympiansMadeHere pic.twitter.com/onnfHibey8

— Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) August 8, 2021

Counting medals

The graphic lists the PAC-12 with 17 golds, 21 silvers and 21 bronzes for a total of 59 total medals, putting the conference between Great Britain with 65 and Japan with 58.

But how can this be? The PAC-12 has decided to count all relay, boat, or team medals in the same event as one medal, dropping the numbers to a more realistic national number.

The PAC-12’s medal count is accurate. However, it is not the way the Olympics crowns its champion. The official Olympic standings rank each country by the total number of golds, with the tiebreaker going to the most silvers, followed by the most bronzes.

In this more accurate measure, the PAC-12 would still finish sixth in the Olympics, falling behind only Japan, who finished third behind the United States and China.

The 106 total medals led all conferences and bested the PAC-12’s 2016 total of 92. The conference has more than 1,300 total individual summer Olympic medals all-time.

Notable athletes

Former Stanford swimmer Kattie Ledecky won four medals in six events. She won two golds in the 800m freestyle and 1,500m freestyle with two silvers in the 400m freestyle and 4x200m freestyle relay. Recent Cal swimmer Ryan Murphy won gold in the 4x100m medley relay and silver in the 200m backstroke and 100m backstroke.

Former USC runner Allyson Felix won her 10th and 11th career medals, setting the Team USA track and field record.

The PAC-12 numbers do include medals for all current and former athletes, including those who transferred away like baseball player Ian Kinsler (Arizona State to Missouri) and women’s basketball player Amy Okonkwo (USC to TCU). The number also includes PAC-12 coaches like wrestler Nate Engel (Oregon State) and swimmer Allison Schmidt (Arizona State).

There is also a number of athletes from team sports who started as part of the alternate squad but were called up to the active roster and officially became Olympians. Jane Campbell, Catarina Macario, Jamie Neushal fell into this category.

Image courtesy of Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images