Adjusted medal tables - How does your country REALLY fare at the Olympics?

[AgainstAllOdds 0]

I've always wondered how well countries actually perform at Olympic games. The medal tables will tell you one story - always USA, China, Russia etc. However, these countries have huge advantages over some others. Namely money and population size. 

 

This research shows which countries out perform their status best - and I found it really interesting. 

 

The two variables looked at are:

 

1. Gold medals per million people
2. Gold medals per trillion dollars of national GDP

 

You can see the full research here and see where your country ranked on the table - https://bitedge.com/blog/which-country-really-wins-the-olympics/

Top performing nations:

 

•  Jamaica
•  Cuba
•  North Korea

 

Poorly performing nations:

•  India
•  China
•  USA

 

Its good to see a table which gives weighting to the smaller nations, although the data has only been collected since 1996 to eliminate USSR and give consistent results.

 

Are there any nations in there that surprised you? And is this research valid or are there flaws?

 

Can we really call Jamaica the greatest Olympic nation in the world?

[Grassmarket 4,059]

1 hour ago, AgainstAllOdds said:

I've always wondered how well countries actually perform at Olympic games. The medal tables will tell you one story - always USA, China, Russia etc. However, these countries have huge advantages over some others. Namely money and population size. 

 

This research shows which countries out perform their status best - and I found it really interesting. 

 

The two variables looked at are:

 

1. Gold medals per million people
2. Gold medals per trillion dollars of national GDP

 

You can see the full research here and see where your country ranked on the table - https://bitedge.com/blog/which-country-really-wins-the-olympics/

Top performing nations:

 

•  Jamaica
•  Cuba
•  North Korea

 

Poorly performing nations:

•  India
•  China
•  USA

 

Its good to see a table which gives weighting to the smaller nations, although the data has only been collected since 1996 to eliminate USSR and give consistent results.

 

Are there any nations in there that surprised you? And is this research valid or are there flaws?

 

Can we really call Jamaica the greatest Olympic nation in the world?

I think you have to factor in a range of sports somehow.  In the modern world especially it’s notable that nations can pile up a lot of medals quickly by concentrating resources on a single sport. Also, I think by including events only since 1996 you have created a bit of an anomaly with Usain Bolt & Jamaica.  

[intoronto 6,468]

No surprise India is last but that will likely change in the next few cycles.

[Dunadan 1,103]

As usual, the stats might be interesting but drawing those kind of conclusions from them is imo silly. USA and other big countries poorly performing? They would have to win 300 gold medals per edition to keep up with smaller and poorer nations in those standings. Jamaica the greatest Olympic nation? Nonsense, the Olympics are not only athletics.

[JoshMartini007 2,767]

Yeah, it's not as simple as dividing the population or GDP and getting a number. Especially when you consider the vast differences between nations. We have nations ranging from tens of thousands to over a billion

[Matej 316]

These kind of statistics is always fun to read, but that's all, there's no added value to it. They're mostly used during and after the Games in smaller countries, like Slovenia, when everyone talks about how we are one of the greatest sporting nations in the world, based on number of population and won medals. So it's nice this research is done   

[Federer91 3,028]

I like how it is oddly specified only after 1996  I think more accurate statistics could be made, if it was filtered by english speaking, hosted in the Northern Hemisphere Olympics after 1996! 

[AgainstAllOdds 0]

15 hours ago, Federer91 said:

I like how it is oddly specified only after 1996  I think more accurate statistics could be made, if it was filtered by english speaking, hosted in the Northern Hemisphere Olympics after 1996! 

This was done to eliminate USSR, as they would skew results, but I do see what you're saying. Stats can be used to prove anything as a few commenters have already mentioned.

 

I suppose this is just a fun piece to be taken at face value.

 

17 hours ago, Grassmarket said:

Also, I think by including events only since 1996 you have created a bit of an anomaly with Usain Bolt & Jamaica.  

100% Usain Bolt has won this for Jamaica, although their track exploits do really have to be admired. 

 

17 hours ago, Dunadan said:

As usual, the stats might be interesting but drawing those kind of conclusions from them is imo silly. USA and other big countries poorly performing? They would have to win 300 gold medals per edition to keep up with smaller and poorer nations in those standings. Jamaica the greatest Olympic nation? Nonsense, the Olympics are not only athletics.

It would be great if there was a formula or some way of actually working out which nations were performing the best relative to size. This kind of thing would be way beyond me from a mathematics / statistics point of view, but I'd love it if the broadcasters or Olympics themselves could add in some kind of adjusted table to compliment the overall medal standings. 

 

Of course it wouldn't be taken too seriously, but would at least give the smaller nations a bit more recognition. 

[Grassmarket 4,059]

33 minutes ago, AgainstAllOdds said:

This was done to eliminate USSR, as they would skew results, but I do see what you're saying. Stats can be used to prove anything as a few commenters have already mentioned.

 

I suppose this is just a fun piece to be taken at face value.

 

100% Usain Bolt has won this for Jamaica, although their track exploits do really have to be admired. 

 

It would be great if there was a formula or some way of actually working out which nations were performing the best relative to size. This kind of thing would be way beyond me from a mathematics / statistics point of view, but I'd love it if the broadcasters or Olympics themselves could add in some kind of adjusted table to compliment the overall medal standings. 

 

Of course it wouldn't be taken too seriously, but would at least give the smaller nations a bit more recognition. 

Pretty sure that if you took [medals won divided by pop size multiplied by a coefficient of range of sports] and controlled for the Bolt factor, then the winner for summer & winter combined would be , winter only , summer only .

[EselTheDonkey 834]

These kinds of statistics are pretty interesting, but it's not the full picture either. The number of participants per country is limited.

 

China cannot send one billion people to the Games. Otherwise we would probably see more Chinese divers or gymnasts who could snatch gold. USA can send only team in Basketball, even though USA II might have chances to win gold as well. And so on.

 

Also, one outstanding athlete from a small country, say Marc Girardelli for Luxembourg in skiing, can have some big influence in the adjusted medal table, while the same outstanding athlete for USA doesn't.

 

Sure, the big countries still have better opportunities than San Marino or Micronesia. But it's not as easy as a 1:1 comparison between their number of medals their population.