Every Olympic games many of us respond with national pride and pleasure at the achievement of our young athletes.The recent women’s soccer football match between Canada and the U.S.A. was a thrilling match in which Canada as the underdog came within a goal of defeating the top ranked American team. Some would say if the refereeing had been more competent they would have won. But in the end what counted was the magnificent performance of both teams in a very exciting match that will be remembered for a long time, played in the home stadium of the iconic Manchester United football team where players of the calibre of Bobby Charleton are legendary. This year so far despite the valiant efforts of many Canadian athletes the medal count for Canada is a bit disappointing. The host country Great Britain has had a tremendous games capturing 55 medals including 25 gold. Canada thus far has a total of 17 medals including 1 gold ,five silver and eleven bronze. It is difficult to predict but there is a reasonable chance that Canada will end up with 17 plus medals overall and in terms of the total medal count as opposed to just counting gold will end up in 11th or 12th position, which as it happens is very close to its ranking in GDP per capita.(As of Saturday afternoon ,with only a few events left to be decided ,Greenwich time Canada’s medal total had in fact risen to 18, 1 gold, 5 silver and 12 bronze) But if we look more carefully at the ranking in total medals and in factors like GDP per capita and total population we see some interesting anomalies which suggest that factors like coaching, training,specializing in certain sporting strengths, hosting the games and that special x factor which we can call the will to win and lady luck also play a very large role in the results allowing for a variance in medal production greater than what one might predict from economic or demographic factors alone.
For a country can be relatively poor with a small population like Cuba or Jamaica and still do very well at the games.Or like the Bahamas and New Zealand be very small, 4.4 million in the case of New Zealand and under 400,000 like the Bahamas but affluent and also do well.
Medal count by country GDP/capita rank Population rank
United States 104 (46g) 14 3
China 87(38 g) 88 1
Great Britain 65 (29 g) 22 21
Russia 82 (24 g) 52 7
Japan 38 (7 g) 18 10
France 34 (11 g) 19 19
Germany 44 (11 g) 20 14
Italy 28(8 g) 25 22
Australia 35(7 g) 6 53
South Korea 28(13 g) 34 25
Netherlands 20 (6g) 10 59
Canada 18 (1 g) 9 36
Hungary 17(8 g) 47 84
New Zealand 13(5) 23 122
Cuba 14(5 g) 92 74
Jamaica 12(4 g) 89 141
Brazil 17 (3 g) 53 5
India 6 (0 g) 140 2
Indonesia 2 (0 g) 110 4
Bahamas 1(1) 32 205
Grenada 1(1) 80 194
haroldchorneyeconomist 