# Olympic medal count. Who is winning? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** olympic-sports-track\ **Created:** [August 1, 2021, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775 "2021-08-01T15:51:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2021, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/61 "2021-08-08T21:50:33Z")
FWIW, whenever I saw ROC on the screen during Olympics coverage this year, I was also thinking “Taiwan”… …which, of course, competes as “Chinese Taipei” (English rendering). And any participant in this subthread on medal values should check out Jerry Seinfeld’s observation: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/xK9rbwM3omA/hqdefault.jpg "Olympics - The silver medal") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK9rbwM3omA) ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2021, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/62 "2021-08-08T21:52:41Z")
Admittedly, one of the biggest guffaws I’ve ever posted, lol. I was thinking “Wow, I didn’t realize Taiwan had so many athletes.” Had forgotten that Russia had been “banned” from the games. But yeah, makes sense now. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2021, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/63 "2021-08-08T23:14:41Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Well, I definitely concede that it’s pretty clearly arbitrary, as is pretty much any other approach. I mean, I don’t want to belabor a silly internet argument… but a medal count which took into account number-of-athletes-at-the-olympics would (if people cared about it) actually provide an incentive for countries to tell athletes to stay home. Which seems pretty contrary to the olympic ideal. No variation of gold=n silver=m or factor-in-country’s-population or anything like that would have a similar effect. Think about every athlete who makes it to an olympic team as being, say, 15th best in the world at some event/sport. 15th might be pretty bad when we’re used to looking at the champions only. But it any broader sense, someone who is 15th best in the world at anything is FUCKING AMAZING at that. Should a country be penalized for having lots of such people, and also providing the necessary support and infrastructure to give them a chance to compete at the highest level? ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2021, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/64 "2021-08-08T23:17:04Z")
There should be a minimum number of athletes. Small countries would be disqualified from consideration. Exactly what the cut off should be? Again, it’s arbitrary. But countries that can easily send large contingents shouldn’t be rewarded for just having athletes there. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2021, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/65 "2021-08-08T23:24:21Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Impressive performance by Australia (pop. 25 mil.) I recall once looking at a chart of medal-winning Olympic athletes over the past few Olympics. Relative to their population, Australia and New Zealand were the highest if I recall correctly. I don’t know how to put together such a chart today for all of the recent Olympics. Can anyone put together a chart with number of medals won divided by population of the country for recent Olympics? ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/66 "2021-08-09T00:20:20Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > But countries that can easily send large contingents shouldn’t be rewarded for just having athletes there. They’re not, unless they win at least a bronze. If anything, with the limitations per country, they are often punished. In basketball, the US could probably enter 3 teams and win all 3 medals. ---
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/67 "2021-08-09T00:29:47Z")
Check the post above. > [@Olympic medal count. Who is winning?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/6): > > [https://medalspercapita.com/](https://medalspercapita.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/68 "2021-08-09T01:18:06Z")
1. New Zealand 2. Jamaica 3. Slovenia 4. Netherlands 5. Hungary 6. Georgia 7. Croatia 8. Denmark 9. Australia 10. Estonia So if we ignore countries with a population less than 1,000,000, the ten countries above have the highest medal count per capita. And this is only for this year’s Olympics. O.K., I’m convinced. Putting together a list that includes more years’ Olympics and somehow takes account of the fact that you’ll get more random variation in smaller countries would be very hard. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/69 "2021-08-09T02:41:33Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > O.K., I’m convinced. Convinced of what? Just looking at that list should tell you that your criteria is missing a lot. Dominance and excellence in a wide variety of sports is clearly not reflected. Australia is the only country on there that even qualifies. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/70 "2021-08-09T03:20:40Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > But countries that can easily send large contingents shouldn’t be rewarded for just having athletes there. I’m not sure what you mean by “rewarded for just having athletes there”. Bear in mind that at least for most sports, a country can’t just “send athletes” to compete in that sport, unless those athletes meet some minimum qualification requirements, which vary by sport. (I may be getting the details wrong here, but in the past that wasn’t always the case, and countries would send athletes who were just ridiculously unqualified, leading to some potentially dangerous incidents like skiers getting passed in races where that shouldn’t be possible, etc. I believe that in general that is no longer possible, although I can’t swear that that’s true for all sports). So a country with a big team doesn’t have a big team because they’re greedy glory-hogs. They have a big team because they have a lot of good athletes across a lot of sports/events. That is, it’s not (1) Have big team (2) Win medals, it’s (1) Have lots of good athletes (2) have big team and win medals ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/71 "2021-08-09T03:56:31Z")
What I’m saying is that I’m convinced that putting together a list that includes all the criteria that it is necessary to include to account for everything is very hard. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/72 "2021-08-09T12:19:41Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I believe that in general that is no longer possible, although I can’t swear that that’s true for all sports That is true, to avoid more Eddie the Eagle situations. But some poorer nations are allowed exemptions to send athletes that wouldn’t otherwise meet qualifying standards. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/73 "2021-08-09T13:44:50Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > as large countries have the capacity to add a greater number of athletes Countries cannot just send athletes at will; they must qualify to be there, and the manner in which countries are allocated slots varies from event to event, as determined by the respective sporting federation. The USA doesn’t just send a bunch of people to run the 100m because they feel like it, they do it because the IAAF allocates slots to them based on the performance of American athletes and the formula by which such things are allocated. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/74 "2021-08-09T14:42:37Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > I don’t care for this sort of puffery, either, but what would make more sense than raw numbers, is maybe factoring-in the size of the Olympic team from a country. The problem with this is, this rewards a country for not qualifying athletes in events. What I would like to see - although I doubt anybody keeps records on this - is, how many medals were won based on the uniform manufacturer (e.g. Nike, Adidas). I would have thought all of a country’s athletes would wear the same manufacturer, but USA’s track & field athletes wore Nike tops, and its women’s volleyball players wore Adidas. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/75 "2021-08-11T00:46:06Z")
This article makes the point that there are a great variety of ways to think about which country has done the best at the Olympics. Furthermore, it limits itself to the current Olympics. It’s possible to look at which country has done the best at all the Olympics or at all the Olympics since a given date: > **[Olympic medals: An alternative table - with US 15th](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58143550)** > > How would the medals table look if population and wealth were taken into account? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/76 "2021-08-11T00:54:54Z")
I think any sort of per-capita approach towards measuring medals will never catch on with the public at large because it’s simply too cumbersome and requires more thinking than people want to think. Nobody ever analyzes Super Bowls, for instance, “Green Bay has won 4 Super Bowls but they’ve got a tiny population so they trump Boston which has won 6 but has a much larger population.” ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/77 "2021-08-11T01:27:13Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > But some poorer nations are allowed exemptions to send athletes that wouldn’t otherwise meet qualifying standards. It looks like this was removed for athletics recently. There used to be an “A” standard and a “B” standard. If you had only people who met the “B” standard, you could only send one of them. If you had multiple people meet the “A” standard, you could send them all, up to the limit for the team. Now there is one standard that is slightly easier than the previous “A” standard. It’s supposedly so they’ll have a better idea of how many competitors there will be in building facilities and such, now that random countries can’t send one underpowered athlete who has no chance of winning. It would be hard to predict before because while those B athletes might not be competitive, they and their countries might just like being at the Olympics and they aren’t woefully underpowered since there was at least some skill requirement. [https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1026794/iaaf-confirm-single-entry-standards-for-rio-2016-olympic-games](https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1026794/iaaf-confirm-single-entry-standards-for-rio-2016-olympic-games) I don’t know what it’s like for other disciplines though. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/78 "2021-08-11T01:40:56Z")
To me, the easiest method is to make three lists without comment - by golds, by total medals and per capita, then let people justify their preconceptions. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/79 "2021-08-11T02:04:23Z")
I thought there were some exemptions for African nations competing in the winter Olympics. I know that some of the athletes in XC and alpine racing were not very competitive. ---
**Author:** ![gnarator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gnarator/32/8266_2.png) [@gnarator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnarator)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775/80 "2021-08-11T15:41:35Z")
If everyone on the team was from Green Bay, they might. They should do that–make pro sports like jury duty. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympic-medal-count-who-is-winning/947775.md?page=5)