Question

In an 8-woman race, gold, silver and bronze medals are to be given to the first, second, and third place finishers.

Answer 1

Let me restate that problem more simply. In an 8-woman race, gold = first, silver = second, bronze = third.

So, 8 people. 3 prizes. To get the outcome, we multiply both "events" : basically the amount of people and the amount of prizes.

Hope this helps!