Did you know that the USA came 33rd in the Olympics & China 47th once you make adjustments for population.?

Question

I'm sure no reasonable person would think it fair to compare the medal tally of a nation like USA with population of around 300 000 000 with a country like New Zealand that has a population of around 4 000 000. When you look at the statistics you realize that countries like Jamaica, Estonia, New Zealand & Australia are kicking butt @sport and countries like the USA & China are way back in the pack.

Answer 1

What's the statistics for the State of California? I heard most Olympians are from California. Maybe we should enter the Olympics under the Californian Flag, like how Hong Kong competes separately from China.

Answer 2

There's no way this is an accurate representation.  It is much more difficult to produce more medals with more people than it is less medals with less people.  I'm not sure if you're American, but if you are, American football and baseball are perfect representations.  It isn't too difficult to win 14 games out of 16, an 87.5% win rate, but who can win 142 games out of 162?  Better yet, the New England Patriots won all 16 games, so you ask MLB teams to win all 162?

Jamaica won 6 gold medals, and to match that, China must win almost 3000 gold medals.  This still isn't a perfect system, because there is no perfect system.  Just enjoy what the athletes gave you.

Answer 3

There's only partial validity to your statement.

If you add in the wealth of the nations, then Jamaica is doing excellent, but Australia is also doing poorly. After all, how can a poor nation gain the funding to support the facilities and trainers to compete for the top?

You could also calculate other such things, like political stability (it's more difficult to train for the Olympics during a civil war, for example), the importance a nation places on Olympics medals (India has a high population, but it doesn't really place a lot of importance on the Olympics, so how can you expect them to be on top if they don't care?), and so many other factors.

If you want to bring the U.S. and China down in order to make yourself feel better, you CAN do it, but Australia wouldn't be on top by any means. Neither would New Zealand. You would see Afghanistan's single bronze medal, for example, being the number one medal (or Zimbabwe's four medals).

It's good to keep such things in mind, but it doesn't take away from the accomplishments of the current athletes.

Answer 4

And here is a great article explaining how much it costs to train for the Olympics in some countries:

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/spor...

Answer 5

Yeah, but that's not right.  What about the lone guy who one a gold medal for India, with a population of over a billion?  Is his gold medal worth nothing?  

Answer 6

Too bad no one goes by population.

hahaha

USA = #1

Stop trying to make excuses just cause your jealous of America

Answer 7

That's some serious math.  I would love to see the equation you are using and do some math myself just for fun.