Dividing population into medals won is a common method in attempting to determine Olympic success.
I’m not sure this is the best approach. Using population can be confusing if not misleading.
For example, the logic that because America has ten times the population it stands to reason they should win ten times the medals as Canada is a popular one today. If America doesn’t win 10 times the medals this is somehow taken to be a victory for Canada.
Of course, this logic can go both ways. For example, Canada has ten times the population of New Zealand. Ergo, according to this line of thinking, we should win ten times the medals of NZL. The Kiwis managed nine medals (three gold). Which means we should have won 90 medals and 30 gold when compared to NZL.
Instead, we won double the medals while New Zealand equaled Canada’s meager 3 gold medal output.
Canada is three times the size of Cuba. As such, we should have three times the medals, right? Instead, Cuba won more – albeit one less gold medal. The Netherlands and Australia are smaller nations and in the case of the former they more than doubled Canada’s gold medal production (seven to three) and the latter won roughly 2 1/2 times more medals – 44 to 18.
It’s not all bad though. Argentina’s population is roughly equal to Canada’s but they finished with six medals.
Population does indeed play a major role but understanding how it relates to athletic excellence is much too complex and well beyond the scope of this post. So many factors and variables come into to play when scouting, funding, developing, training and executing a national sports program.
Which brings me to the pop/medals calculations.
Countries with large populations like China, the United States and Russia will always under perform smaller nations because there are only a finite amount of medals to be won. Ugh, imagine how ugly the figure is when you calculate India’s 3 medals into one billion!
Conversely, smaller countries like Jamaica, Barbados and Greece will always look better. And you’ll never convince me that they are “more athletic” than the United States.
It’s true the reverse is true in terms of just looking at total medal counts. Small countries can never hope to win as many medals in net terms as the U.S., Russia or Germany. However, that doesn’t mean they can’t be competitive as Australia and South Korea have shown.
A better measurement, I would submit, is calculating athletes sent per nation into medals won. But this simplistic method too has its limitations.
For instance, Togo sent 3 athletes and managed a medal. That’s good for a .33 rating -best among the 47 of the 81 nations who won medals I sampled (see table below). Does this mean they’re the “most athletic” nation? They certainly were efficient but I wouldn’t be so quick to crown them kings of sport.
Nonetheless, delegations are, I would think, a function or subset of a population. Yes, when you have a larger population you get to send more athletes but assuming delegations are efficient it should be a fair indication of success.
Stretching Rationales
Too often whenever I read about this sort of stuff it’s less to make a valid point about athletics and more an attempt to begrudge the United States.
A favorite of such detractors is to note, rather tenuously, that the U.S. gets the bulk of its medals in swimming. They certainly do win a lot of medals in the pool. In 2008, 31 in total in fact.
Yet, all told they won medals in 21 different sports.
Downplaying the American success by this logic is sour grapes to me.
No one seems to mind that the Aussie’s won 20 medals out of the 44 (45%) in swimming. By contrast, America’s swimming totals represent 28% of their overall totals.
It’s a shame to read some “sports” writers in major newspapers cynically attempt to reduce the accomplishments of, for instance, Michael Phelps as one writer (who shall remain nameless) predictably did when he described Phelps’ medals as “McMedals.” Such is the rhetoric of some “McWriters.”
In yet another case, in terms of rationalizing Canada’s performance, according to one sports editor, “it doesn’t matter if we win medals” and that our athletes don’t need more funding. Then don’t participate if you don’t plan to take it seriously. Doing so only mocks our athletes. The fact is that many nations do take the Olympics very seriously.
Tsk, tsk, tsk.
They should all know better.
Table: Keep in mind gold medals are not factored into the totals. NOC delegation can be seen as a function of population.
Togo 1/3 = .33
Panama 1/3 = .33
Ethiopia 7/22 = .32
Zimbabwe 4/13 = .31
Kenya 14/56 = .25
Armenia 6/25 = .24
Jamaica 11/56 = .20
USA 110/596 = .18
Georgia 6/35 = .17
Azerbaijan 7/39 = .18
China 100/639 = .16
Cuba 24/149 = .16
Russia 72/467 = .15
Great Britain 47/312 = .15
Mongolia 4/29 = .14
South Korea 31/267 = .12
France 40/323 = .12
Norway 10/85 = .12
Australia 46/433 = .11
Ukraine 27/254 = .11
Bahamas 2/19 = .11
Slovakia 6/57 = .11
Belarus 19/181 = .10
Kazakhstan 13/132 = .10
Uzbekistan 6/58 = .10
Germany 41/463 = .09
Italy 28/344 = .08
Denmark 7/84 = .08
Thailand 4/51 = .08
Slovenia 5/62 = .08
Romania 8/102 = .02
Japan 25/351 = .07
Spain 18/286 = .07
Netherlands 16/245 = .07
Trinidad and Tobago 2/30 = .07
Bahrain = 1/15 = .07
Switzerland 6/84 = .07
Hungary 10/171 = .06
Canada 18/332 = .05
New Zealand 9/182 = .05
Brazil 15/277 = .05
Sweden 5/97 (no gold) = .05
Croatia 5/105 = .05
Poland 10/268 = .04
Iceland 1/28 no gold = .04
Estonia 2/47 = .04
Argentina 6/137 = .04
Czech 6/134 = .04
Greece 4/159 (no gold) = .03
