Sunday, August 24, 2008

2008 Olympic Results - Another Way of Looking at the Numbers

The 2008 Summer Olympics are over, and the results are in. The official rankings are weighted by the type and number of medals won, and with that system, the top ten countries were: China, United States, Russia, Britain, Germany, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Italy, France, Ukraine, and Netherlands (the last three were tied).

Canada came in 19th with 18 medals: 3 gold, 9 silver, and 7 bronze.

If you rank countries by the total number of medals won, the results are similar but the United States overtakes China for the number one spot. The rankings are United States, China, Russia, Britain, Australia, Germany, France, South Korea, Ukraine, Italy.

Canada comes in 15th when ranked by number of medals.

But we're a small country. Clearly a large country like China over a billion people has a larger pool of potential athletes to choose from. So how about looking at the medals won per capita? I reworked the rankings by sorting them by number of medals won per millions of population (the full table is at the end of this blog entry).

With this ranking, Bahamas comes in at number one. They won only two medals, but with a tiny population of 331,000 that puts them in first place. Second, not surprisingly, is Jamaica, which won 11 medals with a population of only 2.7 million.

Iceland, with a population of just over three hundred thousand, won a single medal, putting them in third place.

The only larger countries (more than 10 million population) making the top ten list were Australia and Cuba.

How did the big boys, the officially ranked top 10 countries, do?


China 69
United States 45
Russia 38
Britain 27
Germany 39
Australia 6
South Korea 32
Japan 58
Italy 40
France 33
Ukraine 34
Netherlands 23


None of them made the top 10 except Australia which was 6th, coincidentally the same as the official ranking. China is a big loser at 69th place as is the United States at 45th.

Dead last when ranking by population is India, which won only three medals with it's over 1 billion population.

When I started this exercise I had hoped that Canada would come up higher in the rankings. When ranked by population, Canada is 37th, so we don't come up higher in the rankings by population than by medals, although we come out ahead of the big players. At 0.54 medals per million people we're in the same range as many other similarly developed countries.
























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Medal Ranking Country Gold Silver Bronze Total Population Medals per Million Capita
56t Bahamas 0 1 1 2 331000 6.04
13 Jamaica 6 3 2 11 2714000 4.05
56t Iceland 0 1 0 1 316252 3.16
37t Slovenia 1 2 2 5 2029000 2.46
6 Australia 14 15 17 46 21394309 2.15
28t Cuba 2 11 11 24 11268000 2.13
19t New Zealand 3 1 5 9 4275100 2.11
19t Norway 3 5 2 10 4778500 2.09
56t Lithuania 0 3 4 7 3361100 2.08
56t Armenia 0 0 6 6 3002000 2
16t Belarus 4 5 10 19 9690000 1.96
28t Mongolia 2 2 0 4 2629000 1.52
56t Trinidad and Tobago 0 2 0 2 1333000 1.5
37t Estonia 1 1 0 2 1340600 1.49
19t Georgia 3 0 3 6 4395000 1.37
37t Latvia 1 1 1 3 2268000 1.32
37t Bahrain 1 0 0 1 760168 1.32
28t Denmark 2 2 3 7 5489022 1.28
19t Slovakia 3 2 1 6 5402273 1.11
56t Croatia 0 2 3 5 4555000 1.1
19t Hungary 3 5 2 10 10043000 1
10t Netherlands 7 5 4 16 16445000 0.97
28t Kazakhstan 2 4 7 13 15422000 0.84
37t Azerbaijan 1 2 4 7 8467000 0.83
56t Mauritius 0 0 1 1 1262000 0.79
4 Britain 19 14 15 48 60975000 0.79
28t Switzerland 2 0 4 6 7637300 0.79
37t Finland 1 1 2 4 5318105 0.75
56t Ireland 0 1 2 3 4422100 0.68
37t Bulgaria 1 1 3 5 7640238 0.65
7 South Korea 13 10 8 31 48224000 0.64
10t France 7 16 17 40 64473140 0.62
10t Ukraine 7 5 16 28 46059306 0.61
19t Czech Republic 3 3 0 6 10403136 0.58
56t Sweden 0 4 1 5 9215021 0.54
19t Canada 3 9 6 18 33354500 0.54
3 Russia 24 21 28 73 141888900 0.51
5 Germany 17 10 15 42 82191000 0.51
9 Italy 8 10 10 28 59619290 0.47
14t Spain 5 10 3 18 46063000 0.39
56t Kyrgyzstan 0 1 1 2 5317000 0.38
16t Romania 4 1 3 8 21438000 0.37
14t Kenya 5 5 4 14 37538000 0.37
2 United States 36 38 36 110 304943000 0.36
56t Austria 0 1 2 3 8340924 0.36
56t Greece 0 2 2 4 11147000 0.36
56t Serbia 0 1 2 3 9858000 0.3
37t Zimbabwe 1 3 0 4 13349000 0.3
37t Panama 1 0 0 1 3343000 0.3
56t Tajikistan 0 1 1 2 6736000 0.3
56t Moldova 0 0 1 1 3794000 0.26
19t Poland 3 6 1 10 38115967 0.26
28t North Korea 2 1 3 6 23790000 0.25
37t Uzbekistan 1 2 3 6 27372000 0.22
56t Singapore 0 1 0 1 4588600 0.22
37t Dominican Republic 1 1 0 2 9760000 0.2
8 Japan 9 6 10 25 127690000 0.2
37t Belgium 1 1 0 2 10584534 0.19
37t Portugal 1 1 0 2 10623000 0.19
56t Chinese Taipei 0 0 4 4 23000000 0.17
56t Togo 0 0 1 1 6585000 0.15
28t Argentina 2 0 4 6 40301927 0.15
56t Israel 0 0 1 1 7303000 0.14
37t Turkey 1 4 3 8 70586256 0.11
37t Tunisia 1 0 0 1 10327000 0.1
16t Ethiopia 4 1 2 7 79221000 0.09
19t Brazil 3 4 8 15 187529000 0.08
1 China 51 21 28 100 1325693000 0.08
56t Ecuador 0 1 0 1 13341000 0.07
56t Morocco 0 1 1 2 31224000 0.06
28t Thailand 2 2 0 4 63038247 0.06
56t Chile 0 1 0 1 16763470 0.06
56t Algeria 0 1 1 2 33858000 0.06
37t Cameroon 1 0 0 1 18549000 0.05
56t Colombia 0 1 1 2 44513090 0.04
56t Afghanistan 0 0 1 1 27145000 0.04
56t Malaysia 0 1 0 1 27170000 0.04
56t Venezuela 0 0 1 1 27953701 0.04
37t Iran 1 0 1 2 70495782 0.03
28t Mexico 2 0 1 3 106682500 0.03
56t Nigeria 0 1 3 4 148093000 0.03
56t Sudan 0 1 0 1 38560000 0.03
37t Indonesia 1 1 3 5 231627000 0.02
56t South Africa 0 1 0 1 47850700 0.02
56t Egypt 0 0 1 1 75231000 0.01
56t Vietnam 0 1 0 1 87375000 0.01
37t India 1 0 2 3 1137087600 0

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