I confess that I am one. I've always wondered what the medal count or gold medal count would look like if it were corrected for population or for # of athletes representing the country. The majority of populous countries don't fare well at all. Some of those send small delegations and have a medals/representative count that is not out of line with others. The top three countries in terms of medals/million people are small nations that won 1 or 2 medals. Restricting the analysis to the top 16 medal winning countries, the big winners are New Zealand 3.9 medals/million people, 1.9 gold/million, Australia (2, 0.67), and the Netherlands (1.9, 0.8). The U.S., while having the largest delegation, still fares well (3rd) in medal/representative just behind China and Korea. I'm not trying to prove anything so no bashing. It is just different ways to look at the the raw numbers. The full analysis is below. I'm no computer geek, the formatting and readability got a bit screwed up in copying and pasting.
And yes, the Olympics could be improved. I'd vote for tossing any event that has Synchronized, Rhythmic, or Artistic in its name as well as anything that involves riding a horse.
And yes, the Olympics could be improved. I'd vote for tossing any event that has Synchronized, Rhythmic, or Artistic in its name as well as anything that involves riding a horse.
| Country (pop. rank) | Population in millions | # medals- Gold | medals/ million | GOLD/ million | # of Athletes medals/athlete% |
| USA (3) | 345.426571 | 126 40 | 0.365 | 0.116 | 592 21.3% |
| China (2) | 1419.321278 | 91 40 | 0.064 | 0.028 | 388 23.5% |
| Great Britain (21) | 69.158192 | 65 14 | 0.940 | 0.202 | 327 19.9% |
| France (23) | 66.548530 | 64 16 | 0.925 | 0.240 | 573 11.2% |
| Australia (55) | 26.713205 | 53 18 | 1.98 | 0.674 | 460 11.5% |
| Japan (12) | 123.753041 | 45 20 | 0.364 | 0.162 | 403 11.2% |
| Italy (25) | 59.342567 | 40 12 | 0.674 | 0.202 | 371 10.8% |
| Netherlands (71) | 18.228742 | 34 15 | 1.87 | 0.823 | 258 13.2% |
| Germany (19) | 84.255242 | 33 12 | 0.392 | 0.142 | 428 7.7% |
| Korea (29) | 51.747590 | 32 13 | 0.618 | 0.251 | 141 22.7% |
| Canada (38) | 39.742430 | 27 9 | 0.679 | 0.226 | 315 8.6% |
| NewZealand(125 | 5.213944 | 20 10 | 3.84 | 1.92 | 195 10.3% |
| Brazil (7) | 211.998,573 | 20 3 | 0.094 | 0.014 | 274 7.3% |
| Hungary (96) | 9.676135 | 19 6 | 1.96 | 0.620 | 170 11.2% |
| Spain (32) | 47.910576 | 18 5 | 0.376 | 0.104 | 383 4.7% |
| Uzbekistan (43) | 36.361859 | 13 8 | 0.358 | 0.220 | 90 14.4% |
| TOP 3: MEDALS/MILLION PEOPLE | |||||
| Grenada (195) | 0.117207 | 2 0 | 17.1 | 0 | 6 33% |
| Dominica (204) | 0.066205 | 1 1 | 15.1 | 15.1 | 4 25% |
| St. Lucia (191) | 0.179144 | 2 1 | 11.2 | 5.6 | 4 50% |
| OTHER TOP 12 COUNTRIES IN POPULATION | |||||
| India (1) | 1450.935791 | 6 0 | 0.004 | 0 | 110 5.5% |
| Indonesia (4) | 283.487931 | 3 2 | 0.011 | 0.007 | 29 10.3% |
| Pakistan (5) | 251.269164 | 1 1 | 0.004 | 0.004 | 7 14.3% |
| Nigeria (6) | 232.679478 | 0 0 | 0 | 0 | 88 0 |
| Bangladesh (8) | 173.562364 | 0 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 0 |
| Russia (9) | 144.820423 | 2 0 | 0.014 | 0 | 15 13.3% |
| Ethiopia (10) | 132.059767 | 4 1 | 0.030 | 34 11.8% | |
| Mexico (11) | 130.861007 | 5 0 | 0.038 | 0 | 107 4.7% |
