While Australia’s Olympic team underperformed at the Rio 2016 games, is the medal tally the best way to measure our team’s performance?
The medal tally table sees a country that achieves only one gold medal placed higher than a country that achieves ten silver and ten bronze.
But which country has had the more successful Olympic Games?
Media organisations such as the New York Times have suggested a weighted points system, where a gold medal is worth four points, a silver medal two points, and a bronze one point. This seems fairer, but why four, two, one, and not three, two, one – or maybe five, three and one?
On top of that, why shouldn’t we normalise for population and wealth? It stands to reason that countries with more people will possess more individuals with the potential to become Olympic champions, and that wealthier countries can devote more resources to developing those individuals.
Is it also worth measuring the number of different sports or discliplines a country achieves medals in? Or the number of individual medallists?
A top five or top-ten finish on the official table is a simple but blunt way of measuring Olympic success. Maybe if we had more sophisticated measurement and performance targets we could make better informed decisions about funding, and more insightful evaluations of our team’s performance.
Republican
Guest
I have often felt that the medal table should be integral to a points system, so as an example, 3 points for Gold, 2 Silver, 1 Bronze, the final score determining where a nation sits.
Republican
Guest
I have often felt that the medal table should be integral to a points system, so as an example, 3 points for Gold, 2 Silver, 3 Bronze, the final score determining where a nation sits.
simonjzw
Roar Pro
It's not so much much about making Australia look better Scuba. It's more about having realistic expectations and setting more approriate goals going forward than aiming at a top 5 finish on the table
Scuba
Guest
We could also normalise for the size of the team sent but since the ideas in this piece seem to be directed to making Australia look better that is probably not a good idea.
peeeko
Roar Guru
the current medal table is very crude and inaccurate in my opinion. it is waited heavily t sports such as gymnasts and swimming where one athlete can win up to 8 medals, meanwhile a great basketball, hockey or football team shares one medal between them. Also obviously the 100m on the track is a lot harder to win than a trap shooting medal for instance