Behold - The only Olympics medal table that really counts: PER CAPITA

Congratulations to The Mightiest Nations from the spectacular games of Rio 2016.

For those who didn't make the cut, better luck for Tokyo 2020.

OlympicMedalsPerCapita160822.jpg



Respect to Azerbaijan, Cuba, Kazakhastan and Hungary.

To get that many medals in countries that small AND that are that poor (I know Hungary is relatively developed, but still) is damn impressive.

Resources are 95% of the battle. The US is absolutely packed in infrastructure. I mean, 90% of high schools in the country fund basketball, track, swimming, wrestling, soccer, volleyball, etc. for its students. They provide the fields, equipment, coaches, transportation, leagues, for every single student that is interested.

That's completely unheard of anywhere else in the world. If you want to pursue a sport, you do it on your own time, your own money and have to figure it out yourself. The US subsidizes many sports for basically all its kids.

So yeah, the US dominates exactly the way you'd expect a giant country that spends giant amounts of money to fund sports to dominate.
 
I was actually pretty impressed with their medal count going back to 1996 until now. Sky news kept talking about how much money GB had begun to invest in the Olympics and their athletes after that.
 
The UK, with 64.1 million people, has won 27 gold medals
Maryland, with 5.976 million people, has won 14 gold medals
5.56 gold medals for every UK gold
The UK has over 10x the pop, but less than 2x the golds. Maryland outperformed the UK by a huge margin...
Still in shock that both gold medals in wrestling came from Maryland wrestlers.
 
The UK, with 64.1 million people, has won 27 gold medals
Maryland, with 5.976 million people, has won 14 gold medals
5.56 gold medals for every UK gold
The UK has over 10x the pop, but less than 2x the golds. Maryland outperformed the UK by a huge margin...

They make a similar comparison in the UK with the amount of medals the county of Yorkshire won (incidentally, they won 14 from a population of 5.3 million).

This comparison, like the Maryland one, is nothing but bollox. They count any team medals which contain a Yorkshire or Mayland athlete as a medals for them. I mean, it's all very impressive but I'm pretty sure that the single Yorkshire rower in the men's eights could not have won the medal on his own. Likewise, I'm pretty sure the same goes for Maryland in sports like basketball, swimming etc.

I'm sure the residents of both Martland and Yorkshire are similarly proud of their athletes though
 
I like the Olympics but it is one big sham. No one wins. I've seen the medal table done by gold medals and elsewhere it was displayed as the total medal count. By capita means nothing either. A country of 13 million people, they may win one gold medal but that gold medalist may be the only sportsman or woman in the country. Per capita when it comes to medals is ridiculous. Countries would have different percentages of sports people per capita. Funding is another issue. I'd like to see the whole cost of funding per medal. That would give some very interesting results. Results that would put even NZ near the bottom. This isn't a dig at NZ. I am English so Team GB would be near the bottom as well.
 
The Australians possess the only sporting culture I see as a peer. Fellow rejects. It's that prison vote.

Hespect.
I'm from Australia and have to say we suck as a sporting nation, we throw so much money at these goofballs and they always underperform... Australians were tipping us to get 20 golds... Lmao
 
Resources are 95% of the battle. The US is absolutely packed in infrastructure. I mean, 90% of high schools in the country fund basketball, track, swimming, wrestling, soccer, volleyball, etc. for its students. They provide the fields, equipment, coaches, transportation, leagues, for every single student that is interested.

That's completely unheard of anywhere else in the world.

This.

Ryan Crouser of the US won shot put gold in Rio as a professional athlete after years on a college scholarship. With him on the podium were Joe Kovacs, also of the US and also a professional athlete following a well-funded college career ...

... and Tom Walsh, a builder from Timaru.

New Zealand may not have anywhere even close to the same resources as the more populous nations, but per capita we breed plenty of legit talent compared to the average out here in the South Pacific.

tom-walsh-getty-images.jpg
 
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