Why is a bronze medal not awarded when two silvers are awarded in the Olympic Games?

Question

I'm curios why a bronze medal is not awarded in 100m butterfly swimming Rio 2016 award ceremony. Michael Phelps and two other swimmers got silvers but no bronze was awarded.

So I assume

1. If there are three or more gold medals are awarded, silver and bronze medals are not awarded.

or

2. If there are two gold medals and one silver are awarded, no bronze is awarded.

Is my assumption correct?

Answer 1

You can look at it this way:

• The Gold Medal is awarded to the athletes who have no other athlete before them, in this case Joseph Schooling.
• The Silver Medal is awarded to the athletes who have one athlete before them, in this case Michael Phelps, Chad le Clos, and László Cseh.
• The Bronze Medal is awarded to the athletes who have two athletes before them. In this case, there is nobody who has two athletes before him: Michael Phelps, Chad le Clos, and László Cseh all have only one athlete before them, and Li Zhuhao has four athletes before him.
• Fourth Place is awarded to the athletes who have three athletes before them. In this case, there is nobody who has three athletes before him: Li Zhuhao has four athletes before him.
• Fifth Place is awarded to the athletes who have four athletes before them, in this case Li Zhuhao.
• … and so on.

So, Li Zhuhao is in Fifth Place, because there are four swimmers faster than him. There is nobody in Third Place, because there is nobody who has two swimmers faster than him.

Answer 2

Each ex aequo "removes" one of places.

So if A is first, B and C are ex aequo second and D is third, the final places will be

First. A

Second. B and C

Fourth. D

And no third place.