The Olympic medal table is an exceptional geo-economic prism. It is a thermometer of globalization.
The ranking of the podiums of the Tokyo 2020 Games, in this light, is doubly revealing. On the one hand, it testifies to the specularity between the ranking of the most sportily efficient countries and that of the countries with the highest gross domestic product. A few days before the closing ceremony, on 8 August, the three richest countries are dominating the Games. China, the United States and Japan. Beijing and Washington compete for world economic leadership in the same way as they have competed for the number of gold medals for several editions of the Olympics. And Japan, the host, is the third wheel in both rankings. The three big names, so far, have won 78 gold out of the 339 that will be awarded in Tokyo, about 23%, and a fifth of the thousand medals up for grabs for the 206 teams (the delegations participating in Tokyo represent 204 nations, to which are added the Refugee Committee and the Russian Committee).
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Immediately below the financial-sporting podium are the great European nations: Great Britain, Germany and France. The Olympic disciplines actually reward the United Kingdom, post Brexit, just as, vice versa, GDP smiles on Germany. But the lag is minimal. Expanding the picture to include the most industrialized countries gathered in the G20, the parallel with the Olympic medal table is equally clear, given the simultaneous presence in the two rankings of Russia, South Korea, Australia, Brazil, Canada (besides Italy).
The exceptions of countries admitted to the G-20 but scarcely profitable in terms of medals are represented by South Africa, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey and Argentina which together have accumulated 3 medals of the most precious metal.
On the other hand, the Tokyo 2020 medal table reflects plastically the phenomenon of globalization with the planetary diffusion of disciplines and technologies that allow an increasingly large number of nations to make their way. In Tokyo, athletes from 84 countries have already reached the podium and 57 nations have obtained at least one gold. In Rio there were 86 nations awarded with 59 that won first place in at least one specialty. Similar numbers were recorded in London 2012 and Beijing 2008.