The most efficient medal winning country?
Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: General
Forum Name: Olympic Sailing
Forum Discription: The top end racing in our sport
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4560
Printed Date: 25 Jun 25 at 7:09am
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Topic: The most efficient medal winning country?
Posted By: RyanV49er
Subject: The most efficient medal winning country?
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 10:00am
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I'd like to find out which country was most medal efficient in regards to number of athletes participating. So, if you have hundreds of athletes, do you win far more medals? Are China actually very inefficient by funding so many athletes and sending them all to compete? For example, China have dominated the medal table with 83 medals so far, yet they had over 564 athletes competing. Is this in-efficient? Could they have cut back on the guys and girls going, only sending the medal prospects? The sums show that they have a medal to athlete ratio of one medal for every 6.7 athletes competing. Not bad.. Now GBR have 297 athletes and 41 medals giving an efficiency of 7.2 athletes per medal... China still come out on top, but this goes to show that having several athletes per event is not always a huge bonus. GBR sent a third of the athletes that China sent and won about a third of the medals.. Which means we have a similar quality of athlete as the worlds current best country. Oh, and the USA? 629 athletes and 100 medals = 6.29 athletes per each medal which is the most efficient in the top 5... damn.
Finally, Germany are the worst, with 14 athletes per medal win :)
------------- Online sailing: For when you just can't get to the club: http://visser49erracing.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/online-sailing/ - Visser49erracing |
Replies:
Posted By: kanga
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 10:03am
| I think thats a very good point actually- surely its all about percentages......percent of medal winning athletes per number of athlets for the country - a different way of saying the same as you say..........doesn't make some nations look quite so hot now does it!!? |
Posted By: RyanV49er
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 10:04am
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Oh, and the best overall? Zimbabwe, with 4 medals and only 13 competitors!
------------- Online sailing: For when you just can't get to the club: http://visser49erracing.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/online-sailing/ - Visser49erracing |
Posted By: Stuart O
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 10:06am
| I think another interesting way of looking at the effiency is to look at the number of finalists to medals. On a quick calculation I think team GBR did very well esp as we can then say that just under a 50% chance of a gold medal when the team medalled |
Posted By: allanorton
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 10:24am
| If you combine the olympic & paralympic medal tables we will be about top. |
Posted By: kanga
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 10:27am
| Cor check out Zimbabwe, excellent spot! haha! |
Posted By: RyanV49er
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 10:28am
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I wrote a bit more about Zim on my blog: http://visser49erracing.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/are-china-really-that-good/ - http://visser49erracing.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/are-china-r eally-that-good/
God, I should really do some work... ------------- Online sailing: For when you just can't get to the club: http://visser49erracing.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/online-sailing/ - Visser49erracing |
Posted By: kanga
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 10:56am
me too!! 
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Posted By: Tornado_ALIVE
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 11:20am
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How about medals per capita http://www.symworld.com/medals/index.php?sort=total - http://www.symworld.com/medals/index.php?sort=total Jamacia 1st New Zealand 4th Australia 5th GBR 23rd USA 41st China 63rd ------------- 
http://www.formula18alive.com - www.formula18alive.com |
Posted By: RyanV49er
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 11:24am
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Jamaica are good at medals per capita as they do well in athletics. You just need a straight bit of grass and you can train all day long! So for the Chinese, the women have won the vast majority of the medals compared to the men.. I wonder why this is? Maybe the women have a harder work ethic in comparison to sports women in other countries? I wouldn't dare comment, but it's an interesting thing to think about. ------------- Online sailing: For when you just can't get to the club: http://visser49erracing.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/online-sailing/ - Visser49erracing |
Posted By: allanorton
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 2:06pm
Our populations so big because 1/2 of australia lives in London |
Posted By: Black no sugar
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 3:46pm
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What a fascinating thread...
------------- http://www.lancingsc.org.uk/index.html - Lancing SC 
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Posted By: Phil eltringham
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 4:36pm
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maybe we should all move to Oz and even things out a bit, I hear the weather is nicer there ------------- FLAT IS FAST! Shifts Happen |
Posted By: Lukepiewalker
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 5:50pm
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You can't include China in the medals per athlete calculations, because they get automatic entry into all events, so some of them might not have qualified...
------------- Ex-Finn GBR533 "Pie Hard" Ex-National 12 3253 "Seawitch" Ex-National 12 2961 "Curved Air" Ex-Mirror 59096 "Voodoo Chile" |
Posted By: RyanV49er
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 8:09pm
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Of course you can. They didn't have to send them did they? They still funded each athlete so it's their own fault if the athletes don't win (and also a gain if they do). ------------- Online sailing: For when you just can't get to the club: http://visser49erracing.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/online-sailing/ - Visser49erracing |
Posted By: Lukepiewalker
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 9:26pm
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Aye but it will skew your distribution. Do you think we won't have a handball team in 2012?
------------- Ex-Finn GBR533 "Pie Hard" Ex-National 12 3253 "Seawitch" Ex-National 12 2961 "Curved Air" Ex-Mirror 59096 "Voodoo Chile" |
Posted By: Quagers
Date Posted: 22 Aug 08 at 9:44pm
| Another one to try on the medal table is medals per population, because the larger the population by probability your more likey you are to find a brilliant sprinter etc. apparently we come out well when you do this to the table. |
Posted By: Phil eltringham
Date Posted: 23 Aug 08 at 6:49pm
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http://c4news.com/livepages/olympics2008/c4/olympicsResults.html - http://c4news.com/livepages/olympics2008/c4/olympicsResults. html here you go, live results of medals per GDP, capita etc some very funny results! ------------- FLAT IS FAST! Shifts Happen |
Posted By: RyanV49er
Date Posted: 23 Aug 08 at 7:41pm
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And in 2012 we'll have to work harder to get a better efficiency. and anyway, we're talking about this games, not 2012. ------------- Online sailing: For when you just can't get to the club: http://visser49erracing.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/online-sailing/ - Visser49erracing |
Posted By: Chris 249
Date Posted: 24 Aug 08 at 7:13am
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Wouldn't the fact that many events only allow a limited number of entrants
per nation give an advantage to the smaller nations? Aren't there some sports where the USA or China would get 1-2-3-4-5-6- 7-8-9- etc (or something close to it) if all their top athletes could enter, whereas under the rules they can only enter 1 or 2? |
Posted By: Phil eltringham
Date Posted: 24 Aug 08 at 8:53am
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i think it should be the same for every sport, only one person or team per country per event, that would even things out a bit (even if it does mean we will only win half as many medals cyclying) ------------- FLAT IS FAST! Shifts Happen |