Despite dropping from fourth to seventh place in Tokyo, Britain’s performance at the Olympics in Paris was extraordinary and deserving of celebration. Team GB House sent out this statement on Sunday following the conclusion of 16 incredible days of competition.
Senior officials stressed that even though Team GB only won 14 gold medals in Paris—the fewest since Athens 2004—the 65 medal total was still impressive and should only be viewed as a win after China and the United States.
“We exceeded the 1,000 Olympic medal milestone during these Games, which was a significant moment, and 65 medals are our second-best tally ever on foreign soil,” stated Andy Anson, Chief Executive of the British Olympic Association. Therefore, we ought to rejoice at this great accomplishment.
“We have more medals than we had in Tokyo, and three-quarters of the athletes, or 131 out of 327, will take home medals at the end of the competition. And that’s fantastic—we have medals in eighteen sports.”
All the same, officials admitted that the low number of gold medals overall was a result of a mix of near misses, bad luck, and a low conversion rate of bronze and silver medals into gold.
Putting Adam Peaty’s illness out of our control, Anson clarified, “Adam Peaty contracted Covid while swimming. After experiencing stomach problems on Sunday morning, Kate French was forced to withdraw from the modern pentathlon. That is also beyond our power to change. Katie Archibald broke three ankle bones after falling in the garden, and it affected me the most because I enjoy the sport. Instances such as this are part of the story, and Katie is arguably the world’s greatest woman endurance cyclist.”
Leaders in UK Sport also noted that the British squad went just short of winning eight gold medals, two of which were from the athletics department: Matt Hudson-Smith in the 400 meters and Josh Kerr in the 1500 meters.
“We usually see a 30% conversion rate of medals into gold, but we didn’t see that here,” stated UK Sport Chair Katherine Grainger.
Reviewing what went extremely well and what didn’t work out as well will be what we all do. Were there any gold medals that we missed? What pleasant surprises did we receive? Yet as I sit here and consider what the team has accomplished, I’m really happy.”
“Not finishing in the top five would mean everything failed,” asserted Mark England, Chef de Mission for Team GB, back in October. That was not the case in Paris, Anson noted.
He answered, “That’s nowhere near the way I feel anymore.”
“We returned with sixty-five medals, just like we did in London. The goal is always to keep becoming better and to identify areas in which we can advance even further. Even still, it’s great that 18 different sports had winners since it indicates that a lot of things were done correctly.”
“We hadn’t won on the first day for quite some time, but from there we went on to win a medal every day of the Olympic Games.”
Britain’s greatest achievement was in athletics, when they won ten medals in total, the most since the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The cycling team and rowing team, on the other hand, were close behind with eight-track medals each.
A sense existed that sailing, boxing, taekwondo, and modern pentathlon had fallen short of expectations, although canoeing, diving, and triathlon also fared well.
stating, “The first medal in women’s diving since 1960, won by Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen, contributed to a record-breaking Games for our divers.”
“And completing the aquatics program on Saturday with a first-ever artistic swimming medal for Isabelle Thorpe and Kate Shortman was extraordinary.”
Furthermore, a few of our best-known programs have performed admirably once more. Here in Paris, Team GB’s rowers made a fantastic return following a challenging Tokyo campaign in cycling, athletics, and equestrian sports.”
expressed athletes enjoying their way back to the Olympic platform earned awards, including Alex Yee, Adam Peaty, Bryony Page, Joe Clark, and Helen Glover, as they impressive youngsters like Toby Roberts, and Elisabeth the outlet, while participating Emma Finucane also left their mark.”
Athlete performance awards, which distribute an additional £70 million to 1,100 athletes, coupled with £315 million in government and national lottery funding distributed among 53 Olympic and Paralympic sports, provide exceptional value for money, according to UK Sport.
Paris has a great sense of teamwork. A good example of this occurred when the BOA invited all British athletes who had gone home to return for the closing ceremony on the Eurostar. Out of the 327 participants, 230 accepted the invitation.
