Would you say that a decent Olympic performance, for a nation, is at least 10 Olympic medals?

Question

Anything below that shows weaknesses in sport policy and lack of adequate social and economic policies?

Answer 1

I'd say it depends on the size and wealth of the country. I would expect a country like the United States or China to get a high medal count, as they are both fairly wealthy and have a great deal of people. Poor countries with fewer people may not choose to use their money for sport programs, and would not have enough people interested to invest time into them.

Answer 2

Like you think that Lichtenstein shows a weaknesses in sport policy and lack of adequate social and economic policies?

They've got a population of 35,322 and sent two athletes to the games, but have one of the highest standard of living in the world. They got no medals.

You don't think that there are a whole host of influences on the medal count. To some countries sport is a pastime not an obsession. They spend what little money they have on things that are more important like building roads and healthcare.

Answer 3

Completely disagree.  Who is to say that winning medals is the measure of a country's worth?  Many countries, including mine (australia) now spend the majority of their sports funding on elite athletes so that we can boast about how well we do at the olympics, but completely neglect grass roots participation.  So we are raising a generation of fat couch potatoes whose sporting ability is limited to playing FIFA 08 on the playstation, whilst a tiny minority of elite athletes win gold and allow us to deceive ourselves into believing we are still a sporting country.