You can look at the final medal table at the Olympics in two different ways from a Team GB perspective.
If it was ranked by the total number of podium finishes, Britain would have been third.
But because it’s done by golds, we ended up seventh.
Positive take – 65 medals is the second best ever on foreign soil and the same as 2012 in London.
Less positive take – 14 is the smallest number of golds since Athens in 2004.
The true story is somewhere in the middle and that’s how I would describe the feeling in the GB camp out in France.
Winning an Olympic medal of any description is an incredible sporting achievement, whatever the circumstances.
And I do think that when you view the Olympics as a whole, Britain would be top when it came to near misses.
There were eight of them.
Adam Peaty and Matt Richards in the swimming pool and then Josh Kerr and Matt Hudson-Smith are the ones who spring to my mind straight away.
They were all denied gold by the tiniest of margins.
But there will be no doubt that management at the BOA – and in the governing bodies of all the different sports in this country – will reflect on what needs to be done to convert bronze and silver into gold in Los Angeles next time around.
For what it’s worth, I do think it’s entirely fair that the medal table is ranked by golds.
After all, it’s the purest gauge of winning.
There are some sports where we are still consistently delivering medals – like rowing, swimming, equestrian and cycling – but we aren’t quite the powerhouse that we used to be.
When you’re the number one in a sport that carries a lot of medal opportunities, it makes such a big difference to the end result for the team as a whole.
One of my big takeaways from my time in France was how glad I am that I played a sport that has no subjective judging when it comes to how you’re placed.
In curling, you either win or you lose.
Yes, there are defeats that can be hard to get over but the result is black and white and comes down to shots being executed well or not.
I would have really struggled with the grey area sports.
British boxers seemed to be really harshly judged in the boxing ring and there were plenty of other examples in sports like gymnastics and diving where the opinion of the judges has left people perplexed.
For me, it was summed up by spectators at the artistic swimming being told to make as much noise as they could to give French competitors a better chance with the judges.
The idea of Olympic medals becoming a popularity contest like the X-Factor doesn’t sit well.
I think Scotland delivered pretty much the number of medals that had been expected.
On the surface, it is a bit concerning that the big names like Duncan Scott and Jack Carlin are nearer the end of their careers than the beginning.
The same goes for our two main female track and field stars, Laura Muir and Eilish McColgan.
But it’s way too early to panic about the next generation coming through.
I know from my involvement with the Futures Programme that there will be a lot of LA Olympians who nobody has even heard of yet.
And that will apply to young Scots.
Plus, we might have Bob McIntyre getting a gold medal round his neck!
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