2012 Olympics Medal Count Of Shame Has Britain Losing The Most Of Any Country

The 2012 Olympics medal count of shame is a list curated by the Wall Street Journal during the London Games which shows that though Britain has done stunningly well when it comes to bringing home gold, silver and bronze medals, its athletes have also had by far the most last, second-to-last and third-to-last performances of any nation this year.

Great Britain has wowed the world by securing 24 gold medals and 51 overall medals so far during the 2012 Olympics as of Thursday evening, holding third place after the United States of America and China, according to Yahoo! Sports.

But Great Britain has also got a very dubious claim under its belt, namely that of having been in the bottom three rungs of a competition by far the most of any country participating in this year's Summer Games.

The Wall Street Journal has named the medals for notching a last-place finish, second-to-last-place finish and third-to-last-place finish lead, tin and zinc respectively, in order to make it easier to discuss these disappointing results.

And with eight leads, 11 tins and 12 zinc medals to its name as of Thursday evening, the 2012 Olympics' home country is the one with the most of these "medals" -- totaling 31 so far.

Ukraine and Egypt have more lead medals with 11 last-place finishes each as of Thursday evening. But Ukraine -- the nation with the second-highest lead, tin and zinc total -- only has a total haul so far of 11 leads, five tins and seven zincs, meaning it is eight behind the total amount Britain has so far. The Ukrainians better start slipping if they want to catch up to Britain's losing prowess.

One reason why Britain has been able to notch so many losses, however, is the fact that it has a massive number of athletes participating in this year's games, while smaller nations may have far fewer athletes in the Olympic Village, and therefore far fewer chances to either win or lose. So on some level it's just the math.

But that doesn't explain why Britain has a total 31 of the three dubious medals, while the USA only has six of each for a total of 18 finishes in the last three, and China has only six leads, three tins and five zincs, for a total of 14 last-three performances so far this year. Both China and the U.S. have many athletes at the games as well, which means Great Britain may have some sort of aptitude not only for winning, but also for losing.