Gold medals per capita in Athens in 2004? Go Oz!

 

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By The Cougar, 8 Aug 2008 The Crowd is a Roar Pro

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 athletes, Australia, Beijing Olympics, gold medals per capita, medals per capita, Olympics

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Without wanting to be perceived as a raving jingoist on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, I thought it timely to remind Australians of an intriguing statistic collated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics after the Athens Games in 2004.

Given speculation that Australia might struggle in China this month to match the medal-winning feats of previous Olympics, the following table highlights how well us ‘lil Aussie battlers compared in winning gold nuggets per capita in Greece four years ago.

The ABS said “the traditional measure of medals as a ‘raw score’ did not take into account the population of the competing country, a possible factor in the ability of nations to field medal winning athletes. When this was considered, it presented a different picture to the traditional measure.”

Again, I’m no chest-beating “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie… oi, oi, oi-er,” but it’s an interesting alternative view that shows us to be very strong against the nations that top the overall medal tally (United States, Russia, China).

Nonetheless, we finished fourth on the overall standings in Athens in terms of gold medals won and total medals won.

The ABS analysis shows that Australia’s tally at the close of the Athens Olympics equates to one Gold Medal for each 1,186,000 of the population.

This ranks Australia in third place behind Norway (one Gold Medal for each 910,000 of its population) and The Bahamas (one Gold Medal for each 317,000 of its population).

Using this methodology, the final rank of countries using Population per Gold Medal and Population per Medal is as follows:

MEDAL TALLY BY WORLD POPULATION

1. Bahamas – Population per Gold Medal = 317,000 * Population per Medal = 159,000

2. Norway – Population per Gold Medal = 910,000 * Population per Medal = 759,000

3. Australia – Population per Gold Medal = 1,186,000 * Population per Medal = 412,000

4. Hungary – Population per Gold Medal = 1,229,000 * Population per Medal = 578,000

5. Cuba – Population per Gold Medal = 1,258,000 * Population per Medal = 419,000

6. New Zealand – Population per Gold Medal = 1,301,000 * Population per Medal = 780,000

7. Jamaica – Population per Gold Medal = 1,339,000 * Population per Medal = 535,000

8. Greece – Population per Gold Medal = 1,827,000 * Population per Medal = 685,000

9. Sweden – Population per Gold Medal = 2,222,000 * Population per Medal = 1,270,000

10. Georgia – Population per Gold Medal = 2,537,000 * Population per Medal = 1,268,000

Other:

22. Russia – Population per Gold Medal = 5,273,000 * Population per Medal = 1,547,000

25. France – Population per Gold Medal = 5,493,000 * Population per Medal = 1,597,000

26. Italy – Population per Gold Medal = 5,731,000 * Population per Medal = 2,094,000

27. Germany – Population per Gold Medal = 5,893,000 * Population per Medal = 1,831,000

29. Great Britain – Population per Gold Medal = 6,602,000 * Population per Medal = 1,981,000

31. Japan – Population per Gold Medal = 7,984,000 * Population per Medal = 3,452,000

34. United States – Population per Gold Medal = 8,487,000 * Population per Medal = 2,884,000

53. China – Population per Gold Medal = 41,027,000 * Population per Medal = 20,839,000

75. India – Population per Gold Medal = 1,016,938,000 * Population per Medal = 1,016,938,000

For the full list see the ABS website.

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