To all you sports fans :who will win most medals at the Olympics?
I think Russia.
Nah, Australia.
And I’ve gotta pull for the States myself.
On the other hand, I’m most proud of the lone qualifier from the British Virgin Isles. Carry on, my good man!
~S&S
According to this unwieldy chart (sorry, it was the best I could do on short notice), the US won the most medals in 2000. I’ll have to choose them again this year, though I hope they lose miserably in basketball.
The United States.
The team with the most drug cheats. That would be …
The Isle of Man.
Note to opening ceremony planners - If the name of a country sounds exactly the same in English, French, and the Host’s language, have the announcers say it only once.
Somehow hearing three different women say Canada sounded silly.
But Togo, Togo, Togo made me giggle 
But it’s such a pretty name! Try it: Canada. Canada. Rolls off the tongue, eh?
You’re right, though, 3 times in a row is odd. It’s like going to the Monster Truck show on Sunday-Sunday-Sunday!
It will be the United States.
There’s piles of talk of the United States having trouble because of the few athletes that they lost due to steroids. First of all, the number isn’t that large and second of all they’re a deep country on the track (and in the pool but I haven’t heard of them losing swimmers due to steroids). They’ve got a real shot at sweeping the 100M even without Tim Montgomory…that is if Asafa Powell has a bad race that or something. For most sprints and middle distances as well as most field events (save a few) they will always have a contender. This year Paul Hamm (that’s right ain’t it?) has a shot at a bunch of Gymnastics medals as well which is normally reserved for the Europeans and Asians.
I’d almost be willing to put money on that if you add up all the United state’s swimming and Track and field medals then they will beat every other county. It isn’t inconceivable that Russia or China could have a good Olympics and beat them…but I doubt it.
The cool thing about being from Canada is that when we do win a medal, and especially a gold, it means so much more.
I’m really liking the payout on Ivory Coast.
That’s Cote d’Ivoire! Weren’t you paying attention during the parade?
And if the payoff comes through, it’ll be the Casey d’Ivoire shortly thereafter.
No, it’ll be the United States, i reckon. Ever since the old post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) split into a bunch of separate nations, the US has topped the medal count. The last time anyone other than the US toped the count was Barcelona, where the CIS won 112 total medals to the USA’s 108, and 45 gold to America’s 36.
If you want to vote for Australia, you need a situation where the criterion is medals per head of population. In the July/August 2004 edition of the Atlantic Monthly, one of the magazines’s staff researchers looked at the past two summer Olympics (Atlanta, Sydney) and ranked nations baseed on medals won per head of population. Australia came out on top. (The study included only countries that won at least 5 medals, i guess as a correction for those occasions where a tiny nation will get one medal.)
The researcher, in allocating figures for each country, worked out what each nation’s “expected” tally of medals would be if all the medals were distributed among the nations proportionally, based on population. Then, he compared the “expected” count to the actual count. The results were:
- Australia: 18.2 times its expected share
- Jamaica: 17.05
- Cuba: 16.98
- Norway: 13.2
- Hungary: 13.1
- Bulgaria: 12.2
- Belarus: 10.7
- The Netherlands: 9.7
- New Zealand: 9.6
- Denmark: 7.9
The United States had a figures of about 2.5
The worst ranking among large nations was India, which, with two total medals, won “less than one percent of its expected share.”
By the way, see if you can see a pattern in the medal winners at the first five modern Olympics:
1896 Athens
Most medals: Greece
1900 Paris
Most medals: France
1904 St. Louis
Most medals: United States
1908 London
Most medals: United Kingdom
1912 Stockholm
Most medals: Sweden
I guess that travel difficulties and the expense involved for amateur athletes who wanted to go away to compete meant that there was a strong home team advantage.
Sounds like part of an 80s frat movie. “Togo! Togo! Togo!” Or, to butcher the Simpsons: “Togo! Togo! Togo! 2000!” “Marge, he stole my idea!”
Or maybe a remake of Tora Tora Tora.
I’m rooting for Burkina Faso.
Forget all that. The real question is which nation will have the most atheletes disqualified for doping. My money’s on China.
Canada has also its share of doping scandals.