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Nerd-It
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Olympic results in perspective.
So the USA came second in the medal tally. Or did it?
Well, it depends how you look at it.
According to this the USA came 33rd when adjusted for population, or 47th when adjusted for GDP.
The real winner was Jamacia which came first on the population adjustment and second with GDP. China sored a 47 and 30 and Britain a 16 and 37. Australia scored a 8 and 29. North Korea came first on the GDP normalisation.
So we are very lucky to be living in a prosperous free country, but let's not kid ourselves that we are a nation that breeds olympic success because of any inherent superiority in our environment.
Population size and money are all important. Perhaps we do desreve a silver medal for success in sex and business.
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More analysis by Occams :: NR6 :: Show
The US media is placing the USA first because it won the most medals 111, compared with 100 for China.
Elsewhere they do it on points: gold = 3; silver=2; and bronze=1. On that basis China comes in first with 223 points, USA second with 220.
Perhaps a better benchmark for assessing the potential of a country to produce superlative competitors would be: how many citizens does it take to win a gold medal? On that basis :
Australia comes first with 1,471,489 citizens required; followed by
2 Great Britain,
3 Korea,
4 Germany,
5 Russia,
6 Italy,
7 United States (needing 8,439,574 citizens),
8 France,
9, Japan,
10. China (needing 26,079,305 citizens).
Notice that the USA is the only country fielding mostly African athletes in the top 10. Does this dispel the myth of African athletic superiority?