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