Olympics Results!

[serengetiplains]

This just in! Below are a selection of countries ordered by number of Olympic medals gained per country:

United States 102
Russia 92
China 63
Australia 49
Germany 48
Japan 37
France 33
Italy 31
Great Britain 30
Cuba 27
Netherlands 22
Spain 19
Canada 12
Denmark 8
Sweden 7
Belgium 3

Below are the same countries listed in order of medals per million people. Population estimates taken from the CIA Factbook (see, the CIA *is* good for something):

Australia 2.45
Cuba 2.45
Denmark 1.5
Netherlands 1.4
Sweden .78
Russia .64
Germany .59
France .55
Italy .53
Great Britain .50
Spain .48
Canada .38
United States .35
Belgium .33
Japan .29
China .05

Finally, below are the above relisted with their medals count per million people multiplied by the ratio of [US GDP per capita divided by Country GDP per capita (PPP)]. Figures are again taken from the CIA Factbook. Hey, you gotta know I would have found a way to put the US last on a list.

Cuba 33.1
Russia 4.9
Australia 3.2
Netherlands 1.9
Denmark 1.8
Sweden 1.1
Spain .82
Germany .81
France .76
Italy .75
Great Britain .68
Canada .48
Belgium .43
Japan .39
China .38
United States .35

[cowanrg]

so what are are saying is that the US has the most metals and the highest GDP?

i feel sorry for anyone that lives in the US. they sure are on the bottom!

[Gregm]

These are the results for the 2004 Olympics for the 1st 20 countries ranked by Gold + number of medals.

The US didn't do that badly after all...


...................Gold/Silver/Bronze/Total
1 United States...35 39 29 103
2 China...............32 17 14 63
3 Russia.............27 27 38 92
4 Australia.........17 16 16 49
5 Japan.........16 9 12 37
6 Germany.....14 16 18 48
7 France........11 9 13 33
8 Italy...........10 11 11 32
9 Korea..........9 12 9 30
10 Great Britain..9 9 12 30
11 Cuba............9 7 11 27
12 Ukraine........9 5 9 23
13 Hungary.......8 6 3 17
14 Romania........8 5 6 19
15 Greece..........6 6 4 16
16 Norway.........5 0 1 6
17 Netherlands.....4 9 9 22
18 Brazil.................4 3 3 10
19 Sweden............4 1 2 7
20 Spain..................3 11 5 19

A total of 202 countries participated and apparently over 70 got medals.

It's also interesting to note that countries with relatively small populations managed to get quite a few medals...
Cheers

[jan.didden]

...so, how about a list of medals per 1 million inhabitants, to level the playing field, so to speak?

US 102 medals @ 250 million people = about .4 medals per 1 million.
NL 22 medals @ 16 million people = about 1.3 medals per 1 million...

(You guessed it, I'm Dutch.. )

Jan Didden

[moamps]

44 CRO Croatia 1 2 2 5

5 @ 4,5 million

[serengetiplains]

Originally posted by janneman
...so, how about a list of medals per 1 million inhabitants, to level the playing field, so to speak?

The second listing in my first post above gives medals per million persons. US ranks close to last for countries I listed. Countries I did not list were small countries that would have made US rank even closer to last had I listed them given, then, the heavier weight of more countries on top of the US. I then factored in an economic factor to crudely represent available cash to spend on Olympic training which put the US right on the bottom. Ah, statistics.

[Lusso5]

As if GDP has anything to do with genetic athleticism....

And as if our GDP has anything to do with "cash to train". For instance the Chinese 10m platform gold medal winner was "taken from her family at age 11 to train", while her U.S. competition took time off from her job, as a nurse...

Medal-count for Austin, Texas: 21
Gold: 11
Silver: 4
Bronze: 6

[leadbelly]

Originally posted by Lusso5
As if GDP has anything to do with genetic athleticism....

As if "genetic athleticism" is what wins a medal at the games....

[jackinnj]

well, athletics has a lot to do with things which go on at the tails of a distribution.

these were quite good olympics to watch from the U.S. side of the pond since NBC (the TV Network) didn't broadcast all that "weepy" stuff which the babes want to hear about.

and how about that women's beach volleyball? the greatest spectator sport ever!!!

[serengetiplains]

Originally posted by Lusso5
As if GDP has anything to do with genetic athleticism....

I agree. GDP, rather, has to do with the genetic modification of athleticism.