China took another narrow medal count lead on Day 5 of the 2012 London Olympics, taking their 30th medal to the USA's 29 on Wednesday. Thursday morning sees China with 17/9/4 medals, to America's 12/8/9 and Japan's 2/4/11. France and Germany round out the top five, with 5/3/5 and 3/8/2, respectively. USA swimming's impressive work—Nathan Adrian and the women's relay team each won gold—wasn't enough to move the states closer in overall medal count or total golds.
As always, SB Nation Studios is here with the chiptunes-laced video summary. Anamanaguchi would perform in this closing ceremony, I think.
As swimming continues the US might have a chance to pull ahead of China. In the meantime, I'll continue to wonder how and why Japan racks up so many bronze finishes. For continual updates on the medal count derby subscribe to SB Nation Studios's videos, follow along here at SB Nation St. Louis, or just stop and think, "At this very moment, how much do I feel like letting out a gutteral, beautiful USA! chant?" If the answer is "even more than usual" we probably just pulled ahead.