A medal table showing the European Union as “winning” the Olympics has caused something of a row as the end of the games approaches.
By ourselves, Team GB has stormed up the Rio medal table and is now sitting in second place below the United States.
Thanks to a number of stellar performances from athletes across various disciplines but particularly cycling and rowing, we’ve had an absolute stormer at the Olympic games this year.
But what if instead of Team GB, we were competing as part of Team EU?
German communications company Euro Informationen, whose clients include the European Commission and the European Parliament, has produced a medal table which imagines a games where all the countries of the European Union compete under one flag.
And frankly, we’d be doing pretty darn well...
But the revised medal table clearly riled many, with some branding it “shameful”...
Although some did view the table favourably...
And some pointed out that the table was not in fact made by the EU but by a private German company...
Explaining how the table was put together, the company said: “For the EU Olympic Medal tracker we add up all the medals which have been won by the 28 European Union member states at the Olympic Summer Games 2016 in Brazil. We compare this result with that of the teams of the other nations.
“By the way: The comparison is of course not entirely fair. The 28 EU countries have much higher quota of starting positions than individual competing nations. The fictitious ‘EU team’ has therefore a better chance to win medals than the other participating countries.”
Meanwhile Brexit campaign group Leave.EU has claimed it is being sued by the British Olympic Association (BOA) “for pointing out how great Team GB are doing”, despite evidence to the contrary by the alleged claimant.
In a statement, the BOA said categorically to The Huffington Post UK that it was not suing Leave.EU, saying simply that it had contacted the campaign to order them to stop breaching intellectual property laws.
The pro-Brexit group, funded by millionaire Ukip donor Aaron Banks, had already come under fire from British athlete Callum Skinner on Wednesday, when he told them to stop using his image to promote itself.
But in a dramatic development, the campaign claimed it was having legal action taken against it because “Remainiacs” were trying to “stop us promoting just how great we’re doing”.
Team GB has beaten its 48-medal target with 56 - 22 of which are gold medals.
It is our most successful Olympics held outside Britain.