London contributes most Olympic medals to Team GB’s Rio 2016 haul but Yorkshire brings back more golds

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London's sporting strength was on show at this year's Olympics as athletes from the capital contributed more medals to Team GB's best ever overseas Games than any other region in the UK.

With 17 individual medals returning to the city, London accounts for over 10 per cent of the 144 awarded to British athletes, according to data from bettingexpert.

London's depth and variety of talent was reflected in three golds, two silvers and six bronze medals across 12 different sports including athletics, cycling, equestrian, boxing, rowing and taekwondo.

Dressage rider Charlotte Dujardin, from Enfield, was London's most successful Olympian with a gold and a silver won from the individual and team contests respectively. Earlsfield's super-heavyweight boxer Joe Joyce and Walthamstow's taekwondo athlete Lutalo Muhammad came agonisingly close to gold in dramatic finals.

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Yet in a "gold-first" medal table weighting that put Great Britain, with 27 golds from 67 medals, ahead of China, with 26 golds and 70 medals, London would actually be topped by Yorkshire.

Athletes from the county only brought home 11 medals in total but five of those were of the gold variety thanks to diver Jack Laugher, boxer Nicola Adams, triathlete Alistair Brownlee and rowers Andrew Triggs Hodge, Paul Bennett and Tom Ransley.


Silver medallist super-heavyweight boxer Joe Joyce trains at the Earlsfield ABC (Source: Getty)

In an international medal table, Yorkshire would have finished ahead of Croatia, New Zealand and Canada in 16th place while London would have pipped Kazakhstan and Colombia to 22nd position.

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Rank Country Gold Silver Bronze Total
1 USA 46 37 38 121
2 China 26 18 26 70
3 Russia 19 18 19 56
4 Germany 17 10 15 42
5 Japan 12 8 21 41
6 France 10 18 14 42
7 South Korea 9 3 9 21
8 Italy 8 12 8 28
9 Australia 8 11 10 29
10 Netherlands 8 7 4 19
11 Hungary 8 3 4 15
12 Brazil 7 6 6 19
13 Spain 7 4 6 17
14 Kenya 6 6 1 13
15 Jamaica 6 3 2 11
16 Yorkshire 5 4 2 11
17 Croatia 5 3 2 10
18 Cuba 5 2 4 11
19 New Zealand 4 9 5 18
20 Canada 4 3 15 22
21 Uzbekistan 4 2 7 13
22 London 3 6 8 17
23 Kazakhstan 3 5 9 17
24 Colombia 3 2 3 8

And when it comes to medals won per capita, London fares even worse when compared to relatively sparse regions of the country such as Midlothian in Scotland and Monmouthshire in South Wales who won four medals from a population of 87,390 and three medals from a population of 92,476 respectively.

In contrast, London had a medal for every 510,218 inhabitants.