Lessons from the final medal count:

China and the USA miraculously tied with 40 gold medals a piece, so both sides will declare victory.  But actually China won, because Hong Kong won 2 gold medals and Hong Kong is a part of China.  (If you're wondering Puerto Rico only won 2 bronze medals).

That's if you go by pure gold medals.  If you go by total medals or a weighted average of medals America wins handily.  But China does go by gold medals, and they always have, so. . .

I think it's safe to say both nations are superpowers and their spheres of influence should both be respected, because the clash of these two titans would be the end of the world.  That's the actual lesson to be drawn here.

My confidence in Japan's greatness bore fruit -- they came in 3rd with 20 gold medals.  On a per capita basis that actually outperforms both China and the USA.  Likewise my praise of South Korea was well merited, as they ended up in 8th with 13 golds, ahead of almighty Germany (in 10th place with 12 golds) and the heart of the Roman Empire, Italy (in 9th place with 12 golds)  Rounding out the top 10 competent countries is the Netherlands with an amazing 15 golds, 6th place overall.  Of course one of their golds was by importing an Ethiopian to run their marathon (an amazing race I watched from start to finish through the beautiful streets of Paris), but I guess becoming an attractive place for high quality immigrants can also count towards a nation's strength.

But when you look at per capita one nation really stands out -- New Zealand with 10 gold medals.  Australia and New Zealand, the southern hemisphere Anglos, completely blew the competition out of the water.  Australia had 18 golds and was in 4th place, even ahead of the host nation France (who scored a respectable 5th place with 16).  Canada had 9 golds in 12th place and Great Britain had 14 golds in 7th place, so the Anglosphere as a whole got 1st, 4th, 7th, 11th and 12th place.  What is with the anglosphere and athletic excellence?  That's absolute domination.  That's almost half of the top 12 nations in the world at sports (5/12, or 42%), even though we, at five nations, are only 5/206 of the nations competing at this Olympics.  Or 2%.  If you want to include Ireland as part of the Anglosphere, which is reasonable, it hardly hurts us at all.  Ireland also did great with 4 golds, putting it in 19th place.

Technically Ukraine did beat Romania in the final medal tally, though they both have 3 golds and Romania medaled in better sports than Ukraine.  But Ukraine still lost to Hungary (6 golds) and Uzbekistan (8 golds).  Which means it's underperforming compared to its neighbors or countries in similar circumstances.  Basically a gigantic nation full of Slavic whites should have done much better than it did.  Look at Australia.  That's what you expect out of an all white nation.  Or look at the historic medal tallies that Russia and the USSR managed before they were banned from the Olympics.  Yes, Ukraine got 12 medals, 3 of them gold, but it's still dysfunctional compared to its potential.  Even tiny Georgia, another ex-soviet nation that stupidly fought a war with Russia recently, got 3 gold medals.  It's hard to get excited about how great Ukraine is when it edges out Georgia in the medal contest.  (22nd to 24th.)  And if you say 22nd is proof enough that Ukraine is a great country, then watch out because Iran is 21st in the medal tally. 

Israel only got 1 gold and proved itself to be a charity case which can't do anything on its own.  If Israelis were actually competent and not relying on the USA and Europe for protection and handouts their athletes would have been competitive.  There are plenty of nations that have a lower population than Israel and won more golds, like, say, New Zealand.  Or Norway.  Or Denmark.  Or Slovenia.  Or Croatia.  Or Bulgaria.  Or Serbia.  Or Ireland.  Or Austria.  Or Georgia.  It turns out that if you act like a 3rd world hellhole you eventually achieve on level with a third world hellhole.