Praise for athletes

Moglex

Well done to all who took part in the Olympics.

This is an interesting table. Obviously countries with very large populations do better than those with small ones so it arranges the list by thousands of population per gold medal won.

The UK remains in third place but it gives a very different picture of which countries have the best sportspeeps to the normal table.

Country		Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total	Pop(m)	1000's per
							Gold	All medals
New Zealand 	6	2	5	13	134	734	339
Hungary 	8	4	5	17	180	1,241	584
UK         	29	17	19	65	61	2,102	938
Cuba     	5	3	6	14	11	2,251	804
Kazakhstan 	7	1	5	13	17	2,365	1,274
Netherlands 	6	6	8	20	17	2,774	832
Australia 	7	16	12	35	23	3,232	646
South Korea 	13	8	7	28	50	3,829	1,778
France    	11	11	12	34	64	5,823	1,884
Russia   	24	26	32	82	142	5,914	1,731
USA      	46	29	29	104	312	6,774	2,996
Italy      	8	9	11	28	58	7,268	2,077
Germany 	11	19	14	44	82	7,488	1,872
Ukraine 	6	5	9	20	46	7,618	2,285
Japan    	7	14	17	38	128	18,260	3,364
China    	38	27	23	88	1,344	35,372	15,274

Includes all countries that won at least five golds.

wellused

So the Aussies still came below Yorkshire brilliant.:T:rotfl:

somethingcorporate

It was unbelievable and an amazing achievement for the athletes and (I hate to say it) London.

Well done to them for the years of dedication it takes to be a world beating athlete. Physiologically there are probably a number of people capable of being the best, the mental toughness to train week in week out (120 miles a week for Mo F) is what makes the difference.

Azari

I seem to remember a similar table for the 2004 games.

Australia was so far ahead it was barely believable.

I'd like to see what happens if you group all the EU countries together so that you get a fairer comparison with the much larger, more populous, entities.

System

It's not really fair to group the EU countries together as they all have a different sporting policy and invest different amounts of money in sport.

In fact the whole population to medal comparison isn't very useful. I would much rather see a comparison between the number of medals and the amount of investment in sport provided by the governing bodies.

kermitfrog

Moglex wrote: »

Country        Gold    Silver    Bronze    Total    Pop(m)    1000's per
                            Gold    All medals
New Zealand     6    2    5    13    134    734    339
Hungary     8    4    5    17    180    1,241    584
UK             29    17    19    65    61    2,102    938
Cuba         5    3    6    14    11    2,251    804
Kazakhstan     7    1    5    13    17    2,365    1,274
Netherlands     6    6    8    20    17    2,774    832
Australia     7    16    12    35    23    3,232    646
South Korea     13    8    7    28    50    3,829    1,778
France        11    11    12    34    64    5,823    1,884
Russia       24    26    32    82    142    5,914    1,731
USA          46    29    29    104    312    6,774    2,996
Italy          8    9    11    28    58    7,268    2,077
Germany     11    19    14    44    82    7,488    1,872
Ukraine     6    5    9    20    46    7,618    2,285
Japan        7    14    17    38    128    18,260    3,364
China        38    27    23    88    1,344    35,372    15,274

The population figures for New Zealand and Hungary are wrong, but the extrapolated results are correct.

Moglex

kermitfrog wrote: »

The population figures for New Zealand and Hungary are wrong, but the extrapolated results are correct.

Sorry, it took a LOT of editing to get the columns to line up so errors must have been introduced in those populations.

Moglex

Azari wrote: »

I'd like to see what happens if you group all the EU countries together so that you get a fairer comparison with the much larger, more populous, entities.

Obviously it's do-able but it would give the EU an unfair advantage because they would effectively have much larger teams and athletes who would not have been selected for an EU wide team may have won on the day.

I think it's fair to say that the EU would have comfortably topped the tables, even making allowances for that advantage.