And the gold medal for statistics goes to …
You can do anything with statistics. At the moment lots of countries seem to be counting medals, especially gold ones. I wondered what would happen if, say, you introduced population figures into the mix. In this exercise I’m using the medal table as presented by the BBC at the timing of this post. For population figures I’m using Wikipedia. (Ah, the myriad little ways we have on annoying Mr Haircut.)
So, if the top ten raw medals table were based on medals per head of population, the table for gold medals would look like this:
- Australia
- Netherlands
- GB
- S. Korea
- Germany
- Russia
- Italy
- USA
- Japan
- China
Before the troglodytes Antipodeans get too happy with a gold medal for every 1,782,859 people, I have to point out that if we included all countries, and not just those in the raw top ten table by numbers of medals, then Jamaica is the country to beat, with a gold medal for every 452,333 people. Of course, three of those were won by just one person, which goes to show how rubbish statistics are in the first place.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:03 pm
i’m never annoyed by you doug, for i know of your not so secret admiration for me and all i do and say. so i forgive ya…
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:31 am
oi - the Kiwis are ahead of the Aussies!
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:42 am
….because we have a gold medal for every
one in 1.3 million people.
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:22 am
There are people in New Zealand?
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:38 am
Yep. And very nice people they are, too. ‘Cept quite a lot of them weren’t actually born there. I think they must have started importing people so that the possums and sheep didn’t get lonely.
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Quite alot of Aucklanders weren’t born here
but most of the rest of us were (although
Auckland is a third of our population). But
we’d need a few more people to keep 60
million sheep company. You can travel miles
Doug and never see a soul. So you could
easily think there weren’t people here. The
bliss of emptiness. Maya - or something.
August 24th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Does this now mean that the decisions once taken by the world’s leading judiciary have finally been proved correct? Probably not; it’s just a blip. Still, don’t worry, Brits; the Audit Commission will do their usual cost benefit analysis probably using the algorithms used by NICE to ensure we have just about the worst access to prescription pharmaceuticals in (developed) Europe for drugs that really matter. Have no fear, the bean counters in grey suits will have the last laugh!
August 25th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
[...] a quick example from Metacatholic. See how the meaning [...]
August 27th, 2008 at 1:22 am
I still like my idea for the medal count: a medal only counts for the country in which the athlete does most of their training. Since country of origin is meaning less and less in this era of country-hopping, it makes sense to consider which nation’s resources most allowed the particular medal to be earned. The US would almost certainly blow away the competition on this scoring method, the Chinese (and probably the Australian) tally would be largely unchanged, but there are a large number of other countries that would fall precipitously. I mention this not to be an American partisan, but to suggest how much it is money and not native talent that actually wins medals, just as the Olympics themselves have become almost an exclusively economic venture that incessantly floats some now quite empty ideals.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:39 am
I am wondering what would happen if we factor in GDP as well. Do richer nations have more winners?
September 12th, 2008 at 4:18 am
It’s all humbug.
Mansfield has one per 40,000 people.
Scotland had three per Alex Salmond, which means you won’t see them next to his dazzling self-puffery.