The true Olympic gauge: Medals Per Capita Table

Everybody says the great medal-count derby of Beijing 2008 will boil down to China vs. the United States, but as usual, everybody’s wrong.

Neither China nor the United States has any chance at the top honor.
Oh, they’ll have their little scuffle in the lazy, uninformative, snobbish, egregious Medals Table all right. They’ll count up their raw numbers of medals and feign honor.

They just won’t even sniff contention in the diligent, rational, egalitarian, humble Medals Per Capita Table, the only table that reflects real national accomplishment. Refraining from the sloth of the horrendous Medals Table, the MPC Table actually sits down and does the math, with the help of that little calculator attainable from the bottom left corner of the laptop.

It divides national population by total medals, mindful of the inarguable fact that China, with 1.33 billion people, or the United States, with 303.8 million, should get more raw medals than, say, Australia, with 20.6 million.

Now, is either of those countries as studly as Australia?

Not a chance.

The Medals Per Capita Table first appeared -- to zero fanfare -- at Salt Lake City 2002, as a brainchild of myself and fellow sportswriter Laura Vecsey, with a lot more Vecsey than myself, to be frank about it.

It computed then that the Norwegians were made of the finest stuff on the Earth, an outcome that did not prompt a surge in lutefisk consumption only because people in general have no sense.

Germany and the United States got all chesty about their “first-place” 35 medals and “second-place” 34 medals, but they wrung them from populations so large they posted MPC quotients of a puny 2.3 million (Germany) and a laughable 8.3 million (United States).

Norway plucked 24 medals from merely 4.2 million people for a sterling MPC of 175,861, achieving athletic prowess even while clearly refusing to help overpopulate the Earth, a rare double.

Athens 2004 saw the brawny, hardy Australians lead much of the fortnight until a real frog-strangler of a finish. The Bahamas, with two medals and an MPC of 149,000, nudged Australia’s 49 medals and 406,000, and Cuba made a late bolt to third.

The United States placed 40th with an MPC of 2.8 million (not so bad for an also-ran), and China wound up 73rd with 20.6 million (cementing that 1.3 billion population as a certified hamstring).

Since that Olympiad, Serbia and Montenegro have separated, which is nothing less than ingenious MPC strategy. And the Olympic family in 2007 welcomed the Pacific island of Tuvalu, population 12,177. If any of the three Tuvaluan athletes in Beijing should snare a medal, well, let’s just say that would send a volcanic shudder rippling through the entire MPC Table.

Meantime, we’re underway in 2008, as Monday evening in Beijing brought a fresh “official” medal table, haphazardly done as ever, quite possibly the least telling statistical chart in sports.

The far more astute MPC Table looked as follows. Note the influence of the colossal women’s 10-meter air rifle and 10-meter air pistol, which brought bronze medals to Croatia and Georgia, respectively. Note the prowess of the entire Korean peninsula, with a special MPC shout-out to those dynastic South Korean female archers, possibly the coolest athletes extant.

1. Australia (5 medals) - 4,120,171
2. Croatia (1 medal) - 4,491,543
3. Georgia (1 medal) - 4,630,841
4. Czech Republic (2 medals) - 5,110,456
5. The Netherlands (3 medals) - 5,548,438
6. Cuba (2 medals) - 5,711,976
7. North Korea (4 medals) - 5,869,772
8. South Korea (8 medals) - 6,154,106
9. Italy (8 medals) - 7,268,165
10. Azerbaijan (1 medal) - 8,177,717

Side note: The laggard United States had 12 medals for 25,318,721, and the Lilliputian Chinese gamely had clawed for 14 medals but still looked stuck with 95,003,186.

-- Chuck Culpepper

Culpepper is a special contributor to The Times.

Photo: Park Sung-hyun of South Korea takes aim in the gold medal match against China in women's team archery on Sunday. Credit: Rondeau/Presse

Sports via US PRESSWIRE

Comments

[Nelson]

True comments but what about GDP and number of athletes sent?

Check out these numbers http://best.olympicstats.ever.com/?skip_login=1

[Dom]

I think we've established that this article is just to provoke discussion and has no real point. Yes, I think i's great that some of the smaller countries would get more recognition, but how can you compane a wealthy Norway to China, where millions of people don't even have food.
If china put as much money into training their athletes per head as some of the more developed nations, they would win more medals. But there are more important issues China faces at the moment.

[Dom]

Raj,

You're an idiot. Open your mind and appreciate good sportsmen and women and competition. What puts you in a position to say which races are superior?

[Raj Seth]

Dom

Sorry that you disagree. But the facts speak for themselves.

Just look at the United States Olympic Team for example where equal opportunity to compete in any discipline is available to all ethnicities. Why is that people of negro origin utterly dominate the athletics medals ? Why is that people of white background dominate swimming ? Don't just look at medal results this year. Go back and look at results for the past 10 olympics. It's very hard to argue with the results.

You are spot on , when you state that Chinese citizens barely can feed themselves. Nutrition is one half of the key to developing winners (the other being the availability of facilities and government backing). One day, sometime in the future, the vast majority of Chinese will be well fed and will pass on genetically increased strength. After several generations, you will see the Chinese compete effectively too across the board.

The fact is that the human race is evolving. Just 50 years ago the average Japanese male was puny in terms of height and weight to their American counterparts. Things have started to change in the 21st century - the Japanese have almost caught up.

Dom you need to call that Genetic scientist an idiot. Maybe you need to tell him it's impossible to genetically engineer a stronger and faster mouse. And don't waste your time with mice or men. Because it's also impossible to do genetically engineer such traits in a human as well.

Dom open you mind - The circumstances that have exposed different races of mankind to different environments have unarguably caused some amount of genetic differences. I'm certainly not the first person to suggest that this is reflected at the Olympic level.

Raj

[Steve]

i think that austraia is on top for a good reason. Rarely do you meet a race of people who are so passionate about sport in general. Obviously infrastructure, GDP& economy all facilitates the ability to support and nurture our sports stars. However, many countries with similar economic states ie. Sweden, Norway, Japan etc fail to match us.

I am obviously biaised for good reason but i truly believe.

However, there are a couple of countries who i believe are as talented as any Tonga, Samoa, Fiji.... these pacific island nations are loaded with amazing athletes who if were provided with the resources would probably eclipse all other nations

peace out

steve from london but really sydney

[Glen wood]

Raj,

You have based your whole argument on a falsehood... "What makes the U.S. the greatest sporting nation on earth "?... As if !!

If there were Olympics for whinging, whining, showing off, protesting, too big for your boots, in your face, up themselves, poor sportsmanship, ungracious, etc. etc. then you would be right. USA would win hands down!

Get a grip Raj, you're holding on too tight!!

[Brandon]

By winning 2 medals, a bronze in the men's 400 meter and a silver in the Men's 4x400, the BAHAMAS wins the MCP race for the second Olympics in a row !!!!!

[Marc Cogan]

Let's keep this up to date. At the end of competition August 23, there was movement at the top of the medals per capita table:
1. Bahamas
2. Netherland Antilles
3. Jamaica
4. Slovenia
5. New Zealand
(Australia 6th; UK 26th; Russia 37th; USA 44th; China 69th out of 87 countries which had won medals.)

The top of the gold medals per capita table:
1. Jamaica
2. Bahrain
3. Estonia
4. New Zealand
5. Georgia
(Australia 6th; UK 15th; Russia 26th; USA 31st; China 47th out of 55 countries which had won gold medals.)

[Mike]

1994 to 2008 Winter and Summer Games Grand Total

1. Norway (128 medals) - 4,574,560
2. Jamaica (29 medals) - 2,713,130
3. Estonia (14 medals) - 1,341,664
4. Austria (82 medals) - 8,174,762
5. Australia (199 medals) - 19,913,144
6. Finland (48 medals) - 5,214,512
7. Switzerland (68 medals) - 7,450,867
8. Cuba (103 medals) - 11,308,764
9. Tonga (1 medals) - 110,237
10. Slovenia (17 medals) - 2,011,473

41. United States (485 medals) - 293,027,571

77. China (298 medals) - 1,298,847,624

[isaac, california usa]

While this table is nice to see because it recognizes the achievements of countries with small populations that can't possibly field a wide enough variety of teams to compete in a raw total medals count, the MPC method of measuring a country's olympic success is equally unrealistic, because it creates an impossible standard for nations with large populations. Examples:

China must win 1000 medals for every medal won by a country with 1.3 million people in order to keep pace. If China won every single medal in every event except one bronze medal, and that medal were won by a country the size of Estonia, then Estonia would be considered to a superior nation according to Olympic acheivements. That means that 80 nations merely need win one medal to surpass China, no matter how many medals the Chinese win. Similarly, The US must win 100 medals for any medal won by any nation of three million or fewer.

Regarding Australia and the US, if Australia wins 10 medals, then the US must win 150 medals to be considered equal to the Aussies. If Australia wins 20 medals, then the Americans must win 300 medals just to keep pace. If Australia wins 30 medals, then US must win 450, etc, you get the picture. So the only way the US can keep up with Australia in the MPC is for one of two things to happen: 1. Australia wins 7 medals or fewer. Given Australia's devotion to sport, probably won't happen. 2. The US has to win so many medals that everyone will say that the Americans are cheating, even if nobody gets caught.

I think the questions are: how many people does a nation need to produce enough olympic medal-quality athletes? And how many of the olympic-quality athletes choose sports that don't yield high medals counts? I don't believe that having more people necessrily means a country is going to produce better Olympic athletes (see India), just more of them. The US may produce 100 male athletes who possess the physical qualities that make an Olympic swimmer, but if only 20 of them are allowed to be on the olympic team in the various swimming races, then is this really an advantage?

My 13 year old son swims competitively and also plays in youth basketball leagues. In a city of 50,000 there are fewer than a dozen boys in his age group on the swim club. At the same time, the summer youth basketball program has several hundred boys competing. Its hard to see how the per capita formula helps the US when the most popular American sports yield only one medal while swimming, a niche sport in the US, is a medals bonanza.

[Damon]

If you want to include the population into the olympics, how's this

Since China has 1/5 of the world's population, Chinese athletes should make up 1/5th of all the athletes, have 1/5th of all athletes competing in all events, win 1/5th of the gold, 1/5 of the silver, 1/5th of the bronze. Now the whole medals-to-population ranking system doesn't sound that appealing right?

You go to the Olympics to win gold. If you go there aiming for silver, then hats of to you b/c you're giving yourself a lower goal. No one says "I want to be an Olympic silver medalist". People go for GOLD.

Take a country like Jamaica. Despite their low number of gold medals, everyone will remember what Bolt did. EVERYONE. What Jamaica might lack on paper in the gold medal tally, it makes up in prestige. So it balances out.

Only people with inferiority complexes will create these "ingenious" ways of ranking countries in the Olympic Games. As you have noticed, these people's countries usually don't top the gold medal count. They need some other clever way to raise their own self-esteem.

[Bruce Dunn]

Before trying to generate a fair Olympic count using either population or GDP, one should find a useful system for measuring a countries performance that is independent of these factors. Firstly, the system most often used, I believe is 4-gold, 2-silver, 1-bronze. Note two silvers equal a gold, but a solver and bronze do not.
However, neither of these system measure depth or account for victory certificates. Might I suggest we count as follows: gold-16, silver-8, bronze-4, 4th-2, (5th to 8th)-1. Because of tournament format 4th must be different from 5th-8th. The latter are undifferentiated in so many sports, it would seem that it is fairest to count them the same. Note in all cases two of any result equal the result above it, but one each of every result below a given result do not. For instance a silver + a bronze + a 4th + a (5th-8th) equals 15, less than 16 for a gold.
If one is bothered by two silvers being equal to a gold a more complex system gives values of: 31, 15, 7, 3, 1. In this case two medals or victory certificates can not add up to the result above it.
A very important value of either of these two systems and to a lesser extent the weighted total is that many athletes who contributes to their countries performance have their contribution counted. My problem is that I am finding next to impossible to get overall results down to 8th place.

[Gdcox]

It is odd and a little amusing that China believes that the gold medal count decides the national winner of the Olympics and that the USA believes it is medal count. So by their own views, each thinks it won the Beijing event!!

It is not clear why either method is superior. In fact both are absurd. One hugely over-emphasises gold by ignoring the others and the medals count effectively ignores the achievement of gold by giving all medals equal ranking.

Since the authorities have decided and everyone seems to have concurred over generations that the first three places are worthy of recognition with medals of different worth (in contrast to winner only in ancient Greece), a fairer and more valid accounting would be to use simple weights : gold three points, silver two and bronze one point.

By this method, China wins by three points ( 223 to 220) , the worth of one gold , and Australia would be promoted to fifth.

To say the US won this Olympics is crazy .

[Harms]

This was a really, really great article; something I had researched myself when Australia hosted the Games in Sydney. As usual, the US fans were as pompus as ever, strutting their stuff with all their medals in the pool and in other sports. That's when I first took the total medals and did the division to find the total medals per capita, even though I knew before calculating that Australia had beaten the US in that department, in fact, by a landslide.

I don't think it's wrong to be proud of one's nation-- I myself am an American--but seriously this article points out the big differences between the countries and really puts people into a level playing field (minus the GDP, etc.). It would be great if this were the standard medals table in the Olympics because if nothing else, it would catch people's attention, and maybe some more American's would actually start learning about places outside of their own country...

And for all the posters here who are reluctant to accept that the US really isn't best in the Olympics, I would urge any of you to live for any length of time in a small country with a low poplation (and possibly a low GDP) so that you could appreciate what this alternative medals table has to offer.

[coolfloweu]

I am a German from the European Union and set up a website with the intention to motivate my fellow Europeans to think more „European“.
As you can see under www.EUCHAMPIONS.eu the European Union comes out on top and way ahead of China and USA.
Of course you may argue this doesn’t count, because European Union is no country or nation and if it was, could only have sent 3 athletes per event. Agreed as far as the official table of the International Olympic Committee is concerned, but to show the Europeans themselves – and while on the go also the rest of the world – how well the EU athletes have performed, why not ?!
Especially if you take into account the EU motto : UNITED IN DIVERSITY .
Or if you want to put it under an old competition (or war-) slogan :
„March separately, but win together!“
The table also includes a column giving the population per country, allowing everybody one’s own MPC calculation.

[Jamie]

Perhaps they should have a number of different medal calculations.

We could have:
the most medals overall;
the most gold medals;
the highest points (G =3, S = 2, B = 1);
the medals per capita; and
the medals per athletes representing that country.

Then we'd all be happy. :)

[Nora]

You forgot about Hungary. 10 million population. 10 medals (or 11). They are in the top ten medals per capita, no?

[Steve]

American media posts medal count by Total first (and has for at least the last ten years, whether it worked to the American benefit or not) because gold, silver and bronze medals are all SUBSETS of the Total medals. Ranking by any measure other than Total medals could show bias. The US won all of the categories except gold. If they ordered the medals by bronze, Tony, Jason, and whomever might have a point. But as it is, it is simply a mathematical fact that a Subset (even if it is the gold subset) is by definition an inferior part of the set to which it belongs.

[Steve]

FYI the wikipedia all-time Olympic medal table is listed in alphabetic order (which puts the USA near the bottom), even though the USA has almost 1/5 of all gold medals ever awarded (1008), the most silvers (810), the most bronze (696), and the highest Total (2514). All of these numbers (except bronze, which is almost double) are more than double the next closest country, which doesnt even exist anymore (the USSR). And yet no one here is arguing for this list to be re-sorted. Wonder why...

[Sebastian Lecourt]

Wow -- I can't believe so many people complained about this piece! Well, yeah, population size doesn't determine the number of athletes you can send to the Olympics; but it obviously does determine the size of the talent pool being drawn upon. Are people really so meatheadedly patriotic that they can't concede this?

Also, Lord help us if this person ever holds elected office: "Yes, I agree part of it is the fact that the US has the means and the mode. Don't, however, underestimate the determination and virtuousity of the American people. They are, after all, the melting-pot of the best in the world. That includes you."

[Bob Ellis]

I feel for India.

[Dan]

As an Australian, I am most likely biased. In saying this, though, Australia does have the most hotly contested sporting market (in terms of media coverage and government funding) in the world. Look it up. We have four football codes: Rugby League, Rugby Union, Soccer, and the most popular by far, AFL.

League and Union are the major codes in NSW and Queensland (not even media worthy in other states), and the similarity of these two sports divides this pool again. AFL dominates the rest of the country while still having a strong base in NSW and QLD. On top of this, soccer has grown in popularity since our appearance at the 2006 World Cup.

Add the fact that cricket is our most popular sport, and you have five severely dominant sports that engage most of our sporting scene. When you then consider all of the other sports that Australians partake in, there is a massive incongruence in participation levels. Yet, we still manage to compete fiercely on the world stage in these other sports. Look up any sport and you'll most likely find an Australian competing in it, and near the top, too. Triathlons, hockey, golf, netball, basketball, sailing, surfing, the list goes on. We even upset Cuba in a game during the Baseball World Cup. Our baseball competition is almost defunct.

Our climate, our geographical isolation, and the huge continent we live on, all contribute to our success, and it helps that our culture is basically focused on sport. We live sport. We breathe it. And we're damned good at it, which helps keep the cycle going.

By the way, Government funding to Olympic sports in Australia, other than swimming, is almost non-existent. Some sports have to raise their own funds through donations and such. Our athletes do not receive much money compared to the rest of the sporting "superpowers" (I hate that word). Some have to work and train to survive, and if they win a medal, even a Gold, they receive a grand or two for the effort. Some recieve nothing. It is the pure love of sport, the competition, the joy of it that drives our athletes, and the chance to represent Australia burns deep within all of us.

I thought it important that this be mentioned. Geez, the whole country stops at 3pm on the 1st Tuesday in November for a horse race, the Melbourne Cup, for goodness sakes. It's a public holiday in Victoria. Public holiday for a horse race? We love our sport, and we ARE bloody good at it.

[Sasha]

if you think that taking the same number of people from different sized pools leads to a "level playing field" you need to go back to statistics class..."annie "and $$ play a role. I'm sure some of those Africans would kick ass in Olympics if the were not starving.
_Peace on earth_
Go Yugos. Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia.. Woot Woot

[hahaha]

this article is hilarious! good for you guys i feel bad for all the other countries too

[Matt Evans]

So true, and just as true for the 2010 olympics.