Bill's Alternative Olympic Games Medal Tally - 2004 |
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The tables below are my own version of the Olympic Games Medal Tally with the per capita rankings COMPUTED AT END OF COMPETITION, Sunday August 29, 2004. The following versions are available:
I am working on a range of models at present using World Development Indicator Data to test a range of hypotheses about the medal performance at the Olympics. There are many ways to express the Medal Tally and you can become as complicated as you wish, subject to the rather severe data limitations. For example, you have to use both UN and IMF data in the first table because neither database covers all the relevant countries. Then assumptions have to be made to stitch it all together. Anyway, the results are interesting and probably more meaningful that the official rankings. I hope you also find them interesting. Any comments to Bill. Weighted Per Capita RankingsThis measure shows the medals by million people and also a weighted medal tally per million people. The rankings are sorted on this latter measure. It takes the official medal tally and expresses the Gold, Silver and Bronze in per capita terms. In this case, I have chosen to use Medals per Million People as the per capita measure even if some countries have less than a million citizens. The measure just means that they would achieve this is scaled up proportionately. The weighted per capita total differs from the actual per capita total in that I have weighted a Gold medal as a complete medal, Silver as 0.666 of a medal, and Bronze as 0.3333 of a medal.Various weightings could be applied but I chose this presumably defensible weighting. After all: "you don't win a silver, you lose gold!". The Gold column is the actual Gold medals per million people in that country, the Silver column is the actual Silver medals per million people in that country, and the Bronze is the actual Bronze medals per million people in that country. The Unweighted total is the Total medals without the weighting applied. The final column is the Total medals per capita weighted as described above.
The nations are ranked according to column (13). So Australia at the time of this ranking had the best weighted medal performance relative to its population size. The actual medal tally leader at this time, USA falls to 39th once the population size is taken into account.
COMPUTED AT END OF COMPETITION, Sunday August 29, 2004
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13)
Rank Actual Pop'n G S B Total Gold Silver Bronze Unweighted Weighted
Medal (mill) Actual Medal Count per million people Total Total
Rank
1 52 Bahamas 0.3 1 0 1 2 3.155 0.000 3.155 6.309 4.205
2 4 Australia 19.9 17 16 16 49 0.854 0.803 0.803 2.461 1.656
3 11 Cuba 11.3 9 7 11 27 0.794 0.618 0.971 2.383 1.529
4 13 Hungary 9.8 8 6 3 17 0.814 0.610 0.305 1.729 1.322
5 34 Jamaica 2.7 2 1 2 5 0.747 0.374 0.747 1.868 1.245
6 16 Norway 4.6 5 0 1 6 1.098 0.000 0.220 1.318 1.172
7 59 Latvia 2.3 0 4 0 4 0.000 1.750 0.000 1.750 1.165
8 24 New Zealand 3.9 3 2 0 5 0.768 0.512 0.000 1.280 1.109
9 15 Greece 11.0 6 6 4 16 0.547 0.547 0.364 1.458 1.032
10 65 Estonia 1.3 0 1 2 3 0.000 0.765 1.529 2.294 1.018
11 26 Belarus 9.9 2 6 7 15 0.203 0.609 0.711 1.523 0.845
12 64 Slovenia 2.0 0 1 3 4 0.000 0.505 1.514 2.018 0.840
13 17 Netherlands 16.2 4 9 9 22 0.247 0.555 0.555 1.356 0.801
14 37 Denmark 5.4 2 0 6 8 0.372 0.000 1.116 1.488 0.744
15 30 Slovakia 5.4 2 2 2 6 0.370 0.370 0.370 1.110 0.739
16 33 Bulgaria 7.8 2 1 9 12 0.255 0.128 1.150 1.533 0.723
17 45 Lithuania 3.4 1 2 0 3 0.292 0.584 0.000 0.877 0.681
18 44 Croatia 4.4 1 2 2 5 0.226 0.453 0.453 1.132 0.679
19 32 Georgia 5.1 2 2 0 4 0.394 0.394 0.000 0.788 0.657
20 27 Austria 8.1 2 4 1 7 0.246 0.493 0.123 0.862 0.615
21 19 Sweden 8.9 4 1 2 7 0.450 0.113 0.225 0.788 0.600
22 14 Romania 22.3 8 5 6 19 0.359 0.224 0.269 0.853 0.598
23 42 Czech Republic 10.2 1 3 4 8 0.098 0.293 0.391 0.782 0.423
24 9 South Korea 48.0 9 12 9 30 0.188 0.250 0.188 0.626 0.417
25 3 Russia 142.4 27 27 38 92 0.190 0.190 0.267 0.646 0.405
26 47 Switzerland 7.2 1 1 3 5 0.140 0.140 0.419 0.698 0.372
27 6 Germany 82.5 14 16 18 48 0.170 0.194 0.218 0.582 0.371
28 8 Italy 57.3 10 11 11 32 0.174 0.192 0.192 0.558 0.366
29 7 France 60.4 11 9 13 33 0.182 0.149 0.215 0.546 0.353
30 57 United Arab Emirates 3.1 1 0 0 1 0.328 0.000 0.000 0.328 0.328
31 10 Great Britain 59.4 9 9 12 30 0.151 0.151 0.202 0.505 0.320
32 12 Ukraine 48.2 9 5 9 23 0.187 0.104 0.187 0.478 0.318
33 40 Kazakhstan 15.4 1 4 3 8 0.065 0.260 0.195 0.519 0.303
34 20 Spain 41.1 3 11 5 19 0.073 0.267 0.122 0.462 0.292
35 50 Azerbaijan 8.4 1 0 4 5 0.118 0.000 0.474 0.592 0.276
36 62 Finland 5.2 0 2 0 2 0.000 0.383 0.000 0.383 0.255
37 21 Canada 31.7 3 6 3 12 0.095 0.189 0.095 0.378 0.252
38 56 Ireland 4.0 1 0 0 1 0.250 0.000 0.000 0.250 0.250
39 1 United States 297.0 35 39 29 103 0.118 0.131 0.098 0.347 0.238
40 5 Japan 127.8 16 9 12 37 0.125 0.070 0.094 0.290 0.203
41 53 Israel 6.6 1 0 1 2 0.152 0.000 0.152 0.305 0.203
42 61 Portugal 10.1 0 2 1 3 0.000 0.199 0.099 0.298 0.165
43 31 Taiwan 22.6 2 2 1 5 0.088 0.088 0.044 0.221 0.162
44 51 Belgium 10.3 1 0 2 3 0.097 0.000 0.193 0.290 0.161
45 23 Poland 38.6 3 2 5 10 0.078 0.052 0.130 0.259 0.156
46 49 Zimbabwe 12.9 1 1 1 3 0.077 0.077 0.077 0.232 0.155
47 39 Chile 16.0 2 0 1 3 0.125 0.000 0.063 0.188 0.146
48 41 Kenya 32.4 1 4 2 7 0.031 0.123 0.062 0.216 0.134
49 58 North Korea 22.8 0 4 1 5 0.000 0.176 0.044 0.220 0.132
50 63 Serbia-Montenegro 10.5 0 2 0 2 0.000 0.190 0.000 0.190 0.127
51 73 Mongolia 2.6 0 0 1 1 0.000 0.000 0.380 0.380 0.127
52 35 Uzbekistan 26.5 2 1 2 5 0.076 0.038 0.076 0.189 0.126
53 55 Dominican Republic 8.9 1 0 0 1 0.113 0.000 0.000 0.113 0.113
54 68 Paraguay 6.0 0 1 0 1 0.000 0.166 0.000 0.166 0.111
55 66 Honk Kong 7.1 0 1 0 1 0.000 0.141 0.000 0.141 0.094
56 22 Turkey 72.3 3 3 4 10 0.041 0.041 0.055 0.138 0.088
57 36 Morocco 31.1 2 1 0 3 0.064 0.032 0.000 0.097 0.086
58 38 Argentina 38.9 2 0 4 6 0.051 0.000 0.103 0.154 0.086
59 43 South Africa 45.2 1 3 2 6 0.022 0.066 0.044 0.133 0.081
60 25 Thailand 63.5 3 1 4 8 0.047 0.016 0.063 0.126 0.079
61 72 Eritrea 4.3 0 0 1 1 0.000 0.000 0.233 0.233 0.078
62 28 Ethiopia 72.4 2 3 2 7 0.028 0.041 0.028 0.097 0.064
63 54 Cameroon 16.3 1 0 0 1 0.061 0.000 0.000 0.061 0.061
64 29 Iran 69.8 2 2 2 6 0.029 0.029 0.029 0.086 0.057
65 75 Trinidad & Tobago 6.6 0 0 1 1 0.000 0.000 0.152 0.152 0.051
66 18 Brazil 180.7 4 3 3 10 0.022 0.017 0.017 0.055 0.039
67 2 China 1313.3 32 17 14 63 0.024 0.013 0.011 0.048 0.037
68 46 Egypt 73.4 1 1 3 5 0.014 0.014 0.041 0.068 0.036
69 70 Venezuela 26.2 0 0 2 2 0.000 0.000 0.076 0.076 0.025
70 60 Mexico 104.9 0 3 1 4 0.000 0.029 0.010 0.038 0.022
71 74 Syria 18.2 0 0 1 1 0.000 0.000 0.055 0.055 0.018
72 48 Indonesia 222.6 1 1 2 4 0.004 0.004 0.009 0.018 0.010
73 71 Colombia 44.9 0 0 1 1 0.000 0.000 0.022 0.022 0.007
74 69 Nigeria 127.1 0 0 2 2 0.000 0.000 0.016 0.016 0.005
75 67 India 1081.2 0 1 0 1 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.001 0.001
GDP per Weighted MedalThis table shows the Gross Domestic Product for the medal winning countries expressed in millions of 2003 US dollars for comparative purposes. The next columns are the actual Gold, Silver, Bronze and Total medals won by the respective nations. The Weighted Medal Total is formulated by treating a Gold medal as a complete medal, Silver as 0.666 of a medal, and Bronze as 0.3333 of a medal. So the formula for column (9) = (5) + 0.66(6) + 0.33(7).Column (10) is gained by dividing (4) by (9). The division is done in this way to avoid very small numbers should we have presented Medals per $GDP. But it is a measure of how efficient the medal performance is for the scale of the economy. Column (10) can be expressed in words as the amount in millions of GDP (USD) per weighted medal. So Georgia produced 1173 millions of USD in 2003 per medal weighted medal won so far in Athens. So the smaller this number the 'better' is the performance given the capacity of the economy (as measured by GDP).
The data is ranked according to Column (10).
COMPUTED AT END OF COMPETITION, Sunday August 29, 2004
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
Rank Actual GDP G S B Total Weighted $m USD
Medal $m USD Total per Weighted
Rank 2003 Actual Count Medals Total Medals
1 32 Georgia 3907 2 2 0 4 3.3 1173
2 49 Zimbabwe 2457 1 1 1 3 2.0 1229
3 28 Ethiopia 6590 2 3 2 7 4.7 1413
4 11 Cuba 31288 9 7 11 27 17.3 1806
5 26 Belarus 17417 2 6 7 15 8.3 2092
6 34 Jamaica 7498 2 1 2 5 3.3 2250
7 35 Uzbekistan 8950 2 1 2 5 3.3 2686
8 12 Ukraine 46947 9 5 9 23 15.3 3063
9 50 Azerbaijan 7205 1 0 4 5 2.3 3090
10 41 Kenya 14394 1 4 2 7 4.3 3324
11 52 Bahamas 4584 1 0 1 2 1.3 3439
12 33 Bulgaria 19831 2 1 9 12 5.7 3502
13 73 Mongolia 1215 0 0 1 1 0.3 3649
14 58 North Korea 11251 0 4 1 5 3.0 3754
15 59 Latvia 10180 0 4 0 4 2.7 3821
16 72 Eritrea 1310 0 0 1 1 0.3 3935
17 14 Romania 56814 8 5 6 19 13.3 4263
18 40 Kazakhstan 27494 1 4 3 8 4.7 5896
19 65 Estonia 8151 0 1 2 3 1.3 6120
20 13 Hungary 82423 8 6 3 17 13.0 6343
21 3 Russia 430893 27 27 38 92 57.6 7476
22 45 Lithuania 17805 1 2 0 3 2.3 7635
23 30 Slovakia 32545 2 2 2 6 4.0 8140
24 68 Paraguay 6024 0 1 0 1 0.7 9045
25 44 Croatia 28254 1 2 2 5 3.0 9424
26 54 Cameroon 13086 1 0 0 1 1.0 13086
27 63 Serbia-Montenegro 19387 0 2 0 2 1.3 14554
28 15 Greece 172229 6 6 4 16 11.3 15204
29 4 Australia 528192 17 16 16 49 33.0 16014
30 64 Slovenia 27413 0 1 3 4 1.7 16464
31 36 Morocco 45447 2 1 0 3 2.7 17047
32 24 New Zealand 75562 3 2 0 5 4.3 17443
33 42 Czech Republic 90336 1 3 4 8 4.3 20863
34 55 Dominican Republic 21366 1 0 0 1 1.0 21366
35 9 South Korea 530279 9 12 9 30 20.0 26529
36 25 Thailand 144256 3 1 4 8 5.0 28863
37 46 Egypt 77939 1 1 3 5 2.7 29245
38 2 China 1444640 32 17 14 63 48.0 30107
39 39 Chile 72354 2 0 1 3 2.3 31013
40 23 Poland 206441 3 2 5 10 6.0 34424
41 29 Iran 145091 2 2 2 6 4.0 36291
42 22 Turkey 247190 3 3 4 10 6.3 39051
43 38 Argentina 131190 2 0 4 6 3.3 39373
44 17 Netherlands 515353 4 9 9 22 13.0 39670
45 16 Norway 222506 5 0 1 6 5.3 41723
46 43 South Africa 160555 1 3 2 6 3.7 43820
47 27 Austria 253238 2 4 1 7 5.0 50678
48 37 Denmark 212296 2 0 6 8 4.0 53101
49 19 Sweden 301458 4 1 2 7 5.3 56537
50 57 United Arab Emirates 67519 1 0 0 1 1.0 67519
51 18 Brazil 487769 4 3 3 10 7.0 69711
52 8 Italy 1463871 10 11 11 32 21.0 69745
53 20 Spain 839998 3 11 5 19 12.0 70052
54 69 Nigeria 49576 0 0 2 2 0.7 74438
55 31 Taiwan 287000 2 2 1 5 3.7 78308
56 6 Germany 2404560 14 16 18 48 30.7 78452
57 74 Syria 27280 0 0 1 1 0.3 81921
58 7 France 1766002 11 9 13 33 21.3 82821
59 61 Portugal 147504 0 2 1 3 1.7 88591
60 53 Israel 118743 1 0 1 2 1.3 89079
61 48 Indonesia 210145 1 1 2 4 2.3 90114
62 10 Great Britain 1803937 9 9 12 30 19.0 94994
63 21 Canada 860140 3 6 3 12 8.0 107585
64 47 Switzerland 311490 1 1 3 5 2.7 116882
65 70 Venezuela 78353 0 0 2 2 0.7 117647
66 62 Finland 162056 0 2 0 2 1.3 121664
67 1 United States 10968016 35 39 29 103 70.6 155286
68 56 Ireland 155417 1 0 0 1 1.0 155417
69 5 Japan 4322034 16 9 12 37 26.0 166296
70 51 Belgium 302488 1 0 2 3 1.7 181566
71 71 Colombia 78330 0 0 1 1 0.3 235225
72 66 Honk Kong 160927 0 1 0 1 0.7 241632
73 60 Mexico 623815 0 3 1 4 2.3 267617
74 75 Trinidad & Tobago 118743 0 0 1 1 0.3 356584
75 67 India 600082 0 1 0 1 0.7 901024
Data Source: UN World Development Indicators database, World Bank, July 2004 Compare the Final 2000 Olympics table |
Bill Mitchell
Professor of Economics
Director, Centre of Full Employment and Equity
University of Newcastle
Callaghan NSW 2308, Australia
Telephone: +61-2-4921 5027
Fax: +61-2-4921 8731
Mobile Phone: 0419-422 422
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