By population, Australia is on top of the medal tally

Thats in interesting but I want to how you did it.

Sporting failure? 29 medals is hardly a sporting failure. That giant chip on the shoulder you're carrying is what's transparent.

This is nonsense! Yorkshire's population is less than a third of that of Australia but it has more medals! Australians are transparently desperate to rationalise sporting failure.

Spot on AussieKiwi. Where does this ill founded Aussie bombast and hubris come from? Is it in fact an expression of a deep rooted sense of inferiority on the international stage?

Nice one Jerry!

Australia have done OK for a country of their size even at their current total. BUT the Olympics is about the competitive spirit and Australia have contributed to that with fullness of heart so good on ya. Not so much golden success this time maybe but some inspired performances nonetheless. But can we please keep the money talk out of this - i really think its irrelevant. Australia has lots more disposable income than other countries who are much less developed and its citizens have greater access to the facilities and training much of these sports have as a prerequisite to even start (go out in your garden - if you have one - and try the pole vault). besides the costs and benefits cannot be measured - if anna meares inspires 100 aussie youngsters to take up cycling and improve their fitness and quality of life, get involved in a cycling team then whats the $ benefit of that? Not even worth trying to calculate. Nothing worthwhile is measured in $ so why everything is measured in it I do not know. Lifes great paradox. All this 'top of the table after calculation x and correction y' is just embarrassing, a point compounded when the stats are heinously wrong as they were above.

Aside from the fact that we are one of the top 5 most developed nations in the world, aside from the fact that we compete in sports with the chance to win more medals than other sports and aside from the fact that our culture is more sports focused than others... because there are more important things in life like education it's not amazing. The tally is misleading. It's never a completely fair ground from one nation to the next.

What do say about Kazakhstan, who has 16 mln population, team sent to London is 115 athletes and has won 7 medals (6 gold and a bronze), therefore 1 medal per 2.3 mln population

We cant drop our focus on any sports for the next Olympics, Minority sports only have these 16 days every 4 years to shine, gain publicity and a chance for those much sort after newspaper columns before another NRL/AFL player drinks too much or drives his car to fast.

The real stat that says it all is that we taxpayers have sent 410 supposed world class competitive athletes to the Olympics and to date just 3 individuals plus a relay team of 4 have won an event ! Thats as good enough as one out of about 100 elite Aussie athletes that have succeded in winning something ! Kazakahstan with a team of 114 have won 6 events. That's one out of 19 winning something. North Korea with a team of 51 have won 4 events . Thats one out of 12 winning something. And our 4 gold medals have only cost the tax payer $589m or $147m each ! Not sure we are getting value for money right now ! Perhaps we need to load up on the yachties and dump the swimmers ?

Agree with SE Informer and Walt, what does this piece achieve. We have been spoilt the last 3 Olympics with great overall showings. It was bound to happen ( lack of gold and medals overall ) as funding plays a huge part in success. Another feather in the cap of the labor party !

australia is richer than most countries in the world, we have way way more space to play sports than pretty much any country and we do not have any civil wars or political upheaval in any way whatsoever and never have had. if we were not as successful as you seem to be so proud of it would be shocking. other nations are spending money on food and trying to keep their citizens alive lol australians are by nature or instinct no better at sports than any other people. we are just lucky to live in a country that really is safer and richer and wider than all but a handful of nations. stop being so proud of being better when we really are not.

Heres to that. Hate this stupid story every four years.

This topic is a cop out and making excuses for how badly we performed. We have got loads of room, loads of money, great weather and the results we have attained are completely pathetic. Look at swimming for example. Every second house has a pool, we are surrounded by oceans yet we get a lousy gold. Heads need to roll at the AOC. We need tougher coaches and athletes who work a lot, lot harder.

What a small-minded idea and article.

New Zealand, Jamaica and Grenada are at least three countries that prove your headline claim is crap. Or perhaps NoelO these and other countries are too small in your eyes to be worthy of counting?

All time would certainly explain his calculations a lot better though as you said it does seem a bit odd

All time Australia has 441 medals which is pretty close to 1 for every 50,000 people. China has 436. I suspect Noel was working off the all time statistics, which is a bit odd.

So why bring up NZ? And what's with the personal insults, shackle dragger?

Yep, we let that genie out of the bottle, didn't we... and now our best coaches are busily teaching the people pushing us out - there's irony for ya.