Medals Per Million
Forget the showdown between the United States and China, the real battle was between the Bahamas and Iceland.
Certainy nobody reported the Olympics that way, but isn't there something unfair about tallying medals without regard to population? China's athletes, drawn from a pool of 1.3 billion people, match up against American athletes from a pool about one-quarter as big. Though of course we Americans love to lionize our athletic prowess -- measured in total medals won -- against nations only a fraction of our size.
I mean, is it really fair to compare the medal count between, say, 300 million Americans and 30 million Canadians? Not hardly. In fact, the Olympics exemplify our tendency to measure the wrong thing.
When you factor in population, places like Germany and Great Britain don't matter nearly so much as places like Armenia and Mongolia. Or consider Jamaica, which boasts only 2.7 million souls but still managed to bring home 11 medals, including 6 golds. That means Jamaicans netted more than 4 medals for every million residents. None of the big powerhouse countries came even close to that mark. The United States, by contrast, captured only a single medal for every 3 million citizens.
I couldn't help myself. I crunched the per capita numbers for every country that won an Olympic medal in Beijing. Here are the top 20:
Who would have guessed that this is the roster of champions? (As it turns out, my colleague Clark would have. He reminds me that he wrote a post on this very subject four years ago! Sure, the topic isn't exactly relevant to this blog, it's just one of those measurement issues that tend to drive us a little bonkers.)
Below the jump, the full standings (and more complete data) for every country that won a medal. Also, some caveats.
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