WIth all this talk of cheating, I thought everyone would be interested to see what the 2008 Olympic medals table looked like after adjusting for population. The good news is the two big quarreling rivals USA and China are nowhere to be seen at the top of this table.
China came top with 51 golds of course, but has a population almost 500 times larger than say, Jamaica. So if we look at medals won per 10 million citizens, China comes 47th and has a lot of catching up to do. Per 10 million it didn’t even manage HALF a gold medal while Jamaica tops the table with 22 golds per 10 million.
USA didn’t do much better, coming in at 45th in the rankings.
If we use the total medals won not just golds (the American method), then Bahamas retains its crown at the top of the table in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.
So, congratulations Jamaica and Bahamas on an amazing Olympics!
August 26th, 2008 at 12:54 am
Haha I was watching Cool Runnings on tv earlier today. Excellent movie!
August 26th, 2008 at 1:12 am
Bro, you should have heard them all singing Bob Marley outside the stadium after the 100m final. Was pretty cool running that day!
August 26th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Must have been awesome. Wish I could have been there. Nevermind, there’s always 2012
August 26th, 2008 at 4:44 am
Woai – correction. USA ranked 32nd. So what happened to India?
August 26th, 2008 at 5:54 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsFRgIb8mAQ
I found the speech is rather entertaining.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Here’s another good site with some alternative ways of ranking the countries:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7576446.stm
I like the one which puts Uzbekistan on top!
August 26th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
[...] island nations like the Bahamas and Jamaica at the top of the rankings. Here’s one such list (h/t I Love China). [Andrew [...]
August 26th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Woai – If we adjust even further for those people who are in the age range to practice sport (15-35), Great Britain’s 18 gold medals should be considered a great achievement given its inexorable ageing population!
August 26th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Yeah, well, the USA crushes Hong Kong in the medal rankings of countries that have passports from.
August 26th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
er, that *I* have passports from.
August 26th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
This kind of statistic seems mediocre and is the sort of thing that people in the hood call ‘hating.’ The Chinese and the Americans worked very hard to train for their respective sports. Athlete train with their coaches, teams, and equipment, and not the entire population of the country. A country like India, for instance does not have an advantage over a smaller country like Australia (as the medal table showed). The medals say more about the dedication of the athletes. The best the country can do is hire them good coaches and supply good equipment. I could go on and on, but I believe I have sufficiently communicated (even if I can’t convince) my point that “medals-to-population ratio” is highly irrelevant, and it does not make Jamaica more successful than China or America in the world of sports.
August 26th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
In reverse order:
Gabriel – Lighten up, it’s a bit of fun we’re having, jeez! Even the guy who compiled the table said clearly NOT TO BE TAKEN TOO SERIOUSLY. China would need 1900 gold medals to beat Jamaica using the population weights which is quite hard as there are only 302 medals available in total!
T – You’re a Hongkey? I have a HK ID but no passport.
CP – Great link. Go Uzbekistan!!
Wancestyle – 18? It was NINETEEN gold medals! But who’s counting.
Rich – They changed the lyrics to “Let’s go to Jamaica and feel all right”.
August 26th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I’m a semi-Hongkie. Permanent ID, Passport, poor English, poorer Cantonese. But born and raised in the US and A – lived in Hong Kong for a lot of my life (2 years from ages 3-4 and then almost 7 years from the handover to 2002)
August 26th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
T – I was there 1996 to 1999 so we overlapped. British born but holding a permanent HK ID card courtesy of my HK born mother. Pretty damn good Cantonese, but Putonghua is starting to eclipse it after almost 10 years on the mainland (1999 to 2009?).
Gabriel (AKA American sour grapes): There are so many ways to calculate the medals as the Wall Street Journal talks about here:
http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/who-won-the-olympics-medal-count-let-me-count-the-ways-402/
Just because your way gives the US a better position doesn’t make it the fairest so get off your high horse and accept it. If you have a bigger population and enter more people you have more chance of winning a medal, just like if you buy more lottery tickets you have a bigger chance of winning.
August 26th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
i think economic power would also need to be adjusted.
how much one nation is willing to invest in sports is directly proportional to medal number. take china as an example and compare the results of 30 years ago….
August 26th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
There are tables that consider the country GDP as well as population. And GDP itself probably isn’t accurate as you need to consider the facilities and investment in sport as you mentioned.
But let’s be honest the Olympics isn’t about having an outright clear winner although it’s exciting for countries to cheer for their athletes and marvel at how many more medals they have won compared to last time (go Team GB!).
At the end of the day, it was a fantastic games, and lots of people from many countries had lots of fun.
August 26th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Go Wallis and Fortuna!
August 26th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Hello from Canada,
I like your blog very much. It gives a sense of what it is like to live in a big city, Shanghi in this case.
Keep up the good work.
All the best!
August 27th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Ed, what a lovely thing to say. Thanks for the encouragement and for leaving a comment.
August 27th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
woai, I thought you didn’t think it was worth reporting population-based rankings.
August 27th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
b – It’s just a bit of fun. I don’t think it’s the way that medals should be officially counted but it’s certainly entertaining to look at it in other ways.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
No one is suggesting that Jamaica is the more successful sporting nation. Just that they are more talented, thats all
August 28th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
There is another Olympic competition which is less known. This one actually can have even more ego at stake.
http://www.imo-official.org/results.aspx
Yeah, you can sour-grape with per cap medal counts or other bullshittings like orientals studying too hard ect.
The real scientific truth is God-damn IQ.