With the 2016 Olympics over, people are wondering who won. The blatant answer is the United States with how many medals we ranked in. The United States came home with 121 medals; 46 of them gold, 37 silver, and 38 bronze. China came in second with a total of 70 medals and third was Great Britain with 67 medals. Looking at it this way makes it easy to say, "Yes, of course the U.S. won the Olympics." However, we have to keep in mind that the United states also brought the most athletes this year; 558 athletes in total. Whereas China brought 412 and Great Britain had 366 athletes.

According The Telegraph, if we go by number of medals per athlete than the United came in third with 0.22 medals per athlete. Azerbaijan, a small nation in between Turkey and Iran, won with .32 medals per athlete. The United States would have taken 31st if we look at the stats for number of gold medals earned per million people. Grenada, a country in the Caribbean, took first when it came to how many medals they earned per citizen in the country, where the US didn't even score in the top ten. Looking at the simple Olympic statistics, it is easy to say that the Team USA took first place, but it is not so black and white the more you look into the more complicated Olympic statistics.

So who did win? Was it Azerbaijan or Grenada, who earned most medals per person/athlete. That would make sense since they had a lower population, therefore less athletes to send to the Olympics. Even so, they earned plentiful medals despite their low chances. How about Great Britain, though? The Telegraph reported that Great Britain had stayed higher up in the ranks for gold medals won, golds per million people, golds per 100 billion pounds GDP, and golds won per athlete. Nonetheless, the mass consensus is that the United States won the 2016 Rio Olympics, despite all the controverting data that may or may not say otherwise.