When Usain Bolt, not a naturally modest man, thanks you for your help after clinching his umpteenth gold medal, you have probably done something right. Brunel and Birmingham universities won his praise for their help in preparing and hosting the Jamaican team, writes Chris Cook.
Other universities can claim to have done rather well. I quite liked this exchange on Twitter between William Hague, foreign secretary, and Patrick McGhee, vice-chancellor of the University of East London (which is hosting the US Olympic team).
But on to the medals! Here, courtesy of Podium, the body representing universities and colleges at the London Olympics, is the roster showing which institutions have done best at the sports. If you look on their site, you can see the full list.
Higher and further education is now an important part of the British Olympian system. For institutions, this table does actually matter: as I wrote last week, universities are an increasingly important spine of Team GB’s infrastructure.
| Institution |
Gold |
Silver |
Bronze |
Total |
| University of Edinburgh |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
| University of Nottingham |
2 |
2 |
1 |
5 |
| University of Oxford |
2 |
2 |
1 |
5 |
| University of Cambridge |
2 |
1 |
2 |
5 |
| University of Reading |
2 |
1 |
1 |
4 |
| St Mary’s University College |
2 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
| University of St Andrews |
2 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| University of Bristol |
1 |
2 |
2 |
5 |
| University of Bath |
1 |
2 |
0 |
3 |
| Peter Symonds College |
1 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
| Hopwood Hall College |
1 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
| Northumbria University |
1 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
| Staffordshire University |
1 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
| University of the West of England |
1 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
| University of Leeds |
1 |
0 |
2 |
3 |
| King’s College London |
1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
| Barton Peveril Sixth Form College |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Bournemouth University |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Bradford College |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Cardiff Metropolitan University |
1 |
0 |
0 |
|
What to make of this table? Here are also some important things to note – and I hope they’ll help illuminate some of the nonsense about sport and education in England that has been swirling around lately:
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