C9 Bytes: SQL Server Rank() with Stephen Forte

A great option that must appear in SQL standard as well and perhaps thats why its not implemented by other RDBMS vendors, in an effort to keep the SQL staement set as close to the standard as possible.

Same functionality can be introduced in most databses through a series of SQL statements or as an embeded function.

Unless part of SQL standard, even such good additions come at a price. In a query intensive environment, where a person is likely to enter more than 5-10 rank queries per day, likt the Olympics case for instance, if the underlying database is changed to or changed from SQL server, he is likely to find himself in trouble while adopting to changes.