well, in many sports, the difference between a gold medalist, and silver one tend to be really minor. So, ability wise, a silver medalist is doing pretty well, and can consider to be a top athlete of the world in that given discipline.

So, maybe a 10 points for a gold, 8, for silver, and 6 for bronze might make more sense.

Formula One used to have this scoring mechanism (which I thought was fair), first 10, second place 8, third 6, then 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Usually in a car race there are about 20-22 cars, so only the first 8 cars would get any points.