Yorkshire has become the number one spot in Britain for turning out top athletes after five athletes from the region won gold medals (Team GB are currently ranked third in the medal table, with 22 gold medals). Five golden postboxes, painted in honour of gold medal winners Jessica Ennis, Alistair Brownlee, Ed Clancy, Katherine Copeland and Andy Triggs Hodge from as far south as Sheffield and as far north as Stokesle
Jessica Ennis from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, won gold in the women’s heptathlon while Alistair Brownlee from Leeds in West Yorkshire won gold in the men’s triathlon. Brownlee’s brother Johnny won bronze in the triathlon. Cyclist Ed Clancy, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, took gold in the team pursuit in record time. Rower Katherine Copeland, from Stokesley, North Yorkshire, took gold for the women’s lightweight double skull. 
And rower Andy Triggs Hodge, from Hebden, North Yorkshire, won gold for the men’s four.
The immaculately turned out dressage team of Carl Hester, Laura Bechtolsheimer and Charlotte Dujardin took the total to 22 golds at the Greenwich Park equestrian arena and Laura Trott added another in the women’s track cycling omnium event.
Chris Hoy then rounded off a day of triumph with the seventh Olympic medal of his career, and sixth gold, to rival the tally of compatriot, Tour de France winner and London time trial champion Bradley Wiggins. The victory put Hoy ahead of Wiggins, who has four titles, on ‘gold difference’ as Britain’s most decorated Olympian.
Yorkshire alone currently has more gold medallists than Canada, South Africa or Japan, meaning if God’s Own County was a nation, it would sit among the top 15 countries in the international medals table.
As of yesterday, Yorkshire had more medals per head than anywhere else in the world – one medal per 0.71 million people. The Netherlands was second with a medal for every 1.2 million and Great Britain, excluding Yorkshire, was third with one per 1.57 million people. Consistent table-toppers the USA and China are tenth and eleventh in the alternative league, with one per 4.89 million and one per 19.5 million respectively.
