Medals Per Capita Doesn't Tell The Story

Am I the only one that views "medals per capita" as insufficient to measure the success of a country at the Olympics?

Looks like I am because when I do a google search everyone under the Mayan gods does so.

Seems to me you need to consider other important factors. Namely there are only a finite amount of medals available. Specifically, 670. 302 of those gold.

Simply dividing medals into population will always distort the figures in favor of countries with small populations. Hence, why we ridiculously see countries like Grenada and Bahamas topping the list. Conversely, countries with larger populations like the United States, China and Russia are impacted negatively.

If we accept the premise of limited medals available, medals won into the number of athletes each federation sent feels like a more appropriate measure. How many athletes a country sends is on some level related to its population size and so is discounted. Looking at the top 14 countries (USA, China, Russia, Britain, Germany, Japan, Australia, France, Korea, Italy, Netherlands, Ukraine, Canada, Hungary), the USA gets a ratio of .19 (104/539). China, by contrast, hit a .22 ratio (88/396) and Russia .19 (82/436). Canada chimes in with a .06 (18/277).

The rest of the sample received the following: Japan .13; Korea, Britain .12; Netherlands, Hungary, Germany .11; Italy, France .10; Ukraine .08; Australia 09. Already we see it's absurd to claim Canada "outperforms" the USA. It finished below the sample size in total medals and in ratio relative to the size of delegation it sent. Besides, for me anyway, the discussion end with the fact the USA won 46 gold medals to Canada's rather meek 1 gold.

But do other measurements tell another story? Well, one way to "level" the figures is to reduce the fractions so as to get as close a common denominator we can get to rationalize them. For example, America's 104/539 becomes 26/135 or an assigned figure of 26 whereas Canada's would become 9/139 (with 135 and 139 acting as imperfect common denominators. Still, you get the idea. America's 104 medals is a 26 and Canada's 18 is a 9. Again, China slight edge over the USA 29 to 26 while Russia 24. All other countries hover in the 11-14 range. Canada, turns out, is at the bottom - again. In a per capita model, Canada would outperform the USA.

However, there's something to be said of the fact that the USA wins many medals at team sports that count for one. If each athlete were counted into the overall count, the USA would surpass everyone (in this case, China) without much of a contest.

Any astute sports fan wouldn't believe Canada is "better" than the USA.

Moreover, many athletes from around the world train in world class U.S. facilities. I'm not a mathematician. I'm sure there's a far more efficient equation (perhaps even including population) that can be created to make these figures more accurate. Yet another way to look at things is to divide number of medals won into number of medals available. Let's use the USA as an example again. 104/670 means they won 15% of the medals.

Ok, so what?

What does 15% mean relatively speaking? One way to look at it is to measure it against USA's economy which represents about 26% (wasn't it about 50% once upon a time? Anyway) of the world's economy. On this level, they "under perform." But if we look at the percentage the USA population represents globally (4%) then they "outperform" by a factor of 3. China represents 19% of the world's pop but it certainly didn't win 19% of the medals. However, its economy makes up just 1% of the overall total whereas they managed to win 14% of the medals.

And so on. You can do the exercise yourself if you desire. Suffice to show per capita on its own is not a good way to calculate things.

I guess one can still argue, relative to its wealth, power and talent base, the USA should and can win more medals. But it's a competitive world. Everyone wants to win (except for Canada, snicker, snicker). Then again, the Olympics offer many sports. Different cultures excel at more than others. For instance, the Americans are strong at track and swimming, Asia badminton and martial arts, Europe team sports etc.

This conspires to reduce the amount of medals a country can win further.