by Tom Kando
THE 2018 WINTER
OPLYMPICS; RANKINGS
93 countries participated in the recent Winter Games in Pyongchang. 30 of them won 1 or more medals. 63 did not.
I gave each country 3 points for
a gold medal, 2 for silver and 1 for bronze.
I then ranked all the countries by total points. For example, Norway had
13 gold medals, 14 silver and 11 bronze, for a total of 82 points. The US had
(9 x 3) + (8 x 2) + (6 x 1) = 49, and so forth.
I then calculated each country’s
PER CAPITA score. The table below ranks the 30 medal-winning countries by per
capita points earned:
Country
|
points
|
medals per population
|
1. Liechtenstein
|
1
|
1 per 38,000
|
2. Norway
|
82
|
1 per 64,000
|
3. Switzerland
|
31
|
1 per 270,000
|
4. Sweden
|
34
|
1 per 291,000
|
5. Austria
|
27
|
1 per 324,000
|
6. Netherlands
|
42
|
1 per 405,000
|
7. Finland
|
9
|
1 per 611,000
|
8. Canada
|
59
|
1 per 615,000
|
9. Slovenia
|
3
|
1 per 689,000
|
10. Slovakia
|
7
|
1 per 776,000
|
11. Czech Republic
|
13
|
1 per
812,000
|
12. Germany
|
69
|
1 per
1.2 million
|
13. Belarus
|
7
|
1 per 1.4 million
|
14. South Korea
|
35
|
1 per
1 per 1.5 million
|
15. Latvia
|
1
|
1 per 2 million
|
16. France
|
29
|
1 per 2.31 million
|
17. New Zealand
|
2
|
1 per 2.35 million
|
18. Hungary
|
3
|
1 per 3.3 million
|
19. Italy
|
18
|
1 per 3.4 million
|
20. Australia
|
5
|
1 per 4.8 million
|
21. Japan
|
26
|
1 per4.9 million
|
22. Russia
|
27
|
1 per 5.4 million
|
23. Belgium
|
2
|
1 per 5.7 million
|
24. USA
|
49
|
1 per6.6 million
|
25. Great Britain
|
7
|
1 per 9.4 million
|
26. Poland
|
4
|
1 per9.5 million
|
27. Ukraine
|
3
|
1 per 15 million
|
28. Kazakhstan
|
1
|
1 per 17. 8 million
|
29. Spain
|
2
|
1 per 23.3 million
|
30. China
|
17
|
1 per 81 million
|
I predicted which 18
countries would win medals and which 48
would not (leaving aside the remaining 27). I was correct in 58 cases and wrong
in 8, for an error rate of 12%.
Analysis:
Regarding the countries which
won medals: My ranked list is a healthy
antidote to chauvinism. For example, the USA is the 24th best
country, and Norway isn’t number one.
Russia is a bit better than America (as is Belgium). Poor China is dead
last, but at least it did win some medals.
What about the 63 countries that
won nothing? I have grouped them by region (and by some other factors). I
offer some obvious and tentative REASONS
for these countries’ failure to win any medals.
1. Latin America.: 7
countries
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico
Reasons: $, climate/geography
and culture.
2. Africa: 9 countries
Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Nigeria, South
Africa, Togo
Reasons: $, climate/geography
and culture
3. Eastern Europe/Western
Asia, formerly under Soviet or Yugoslav Communism; 18 countries
Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Lithuania,
Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Turkey
Reasons: $, and for some
countries, climate/geography
4. Tiny European city-states
and principalities: 5 countries
Andorra, Luxembourg, Malta,
Monaco, San Marino
Reason: small size
5. South(central) Asian
world: 5 countries
India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan,
Pakistan, Uzbekistan
Reasons: $, climate/geography
and culture
6. (Small and/or poor) island nations: 6 countries
Bermuda, East Timor, Jamaica,
Puerto Rico, Singapore, Tonga
Reasons: $, climate/geography
and small size
7. Rest of Western Europe: 4
countries
Denmark, Iceland, Ireland,
Portugal
Reasons: No good excuses.
However, according to some
surveys, the Danes are the happiest people in the world, so maybe they feel so
content that they have no urge to prove anything. This explanation may also
apply to some other countries...(Smile; I am writing in a spirit of levity...)
8. Rest of Asia: 7 countries
Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong,
Malaysia, Mongolia, North Korea, Philippines, Thailand
Reasons: No good excuses (see
Group #7, above)
9. Rest of Middle East: 2
countries
Israel, Lebanon
Reasons: No good excuses
Singled out for special
attention:
The 5 least “winter-sport
minded” countries that participated in
the winter Olympics. The larger their population, the lower I ranked them:
Mexico (population 128 million),
ranked #89 out of 93; Nigeria (186 million people), ranked #90; Pakistan (193
million), ranked #91, Brazil (208 million), ranked #92; India (1.3 billion)
ranked dead last.
I focus on these five countries not for opprobrium, but
because of their huge size. It would be
wrong to suggest any “shame” here. For one thing, these five countries are all
still developing, and they are all tropical.
Furthermore, they each excel in other sports - India in cricket and
field hockey, Brazil in soccer, etc. I am only stating an empirical
observation, namely the minimal importance of winter sports in some very large
countries.
And of course, there are another
110 countries which didn’t even show up in Pyongchang.
© Tom Kando 2018;All Rights Reserved
6 comments:
Excellent, Tom! I loved it. Not your typical blog post, and it provides some very useful insights. (Insights which, by the way, are unlikely to come from typical media sources.) Barry
You've got too much time on your hands, stop the pointless pontificating and go help the poor or do something more productive.
pourquoi cites-tu la sainte russie pute-ynienne disqualifiée pour "tromperie sur la marchandise" ? L'Observateur Paris-Phnom Penh.
This is interesting but seems to run counter to "We are #1!"
I like this challenge, if for no other reason than that I love sports. I love all sports genre, but winter sports are important to me because I was first knocked dead by looking at outdoor films in Denver when I was staying with my aunt who lived there, between my sophomore and junior years in college. I worked in a mall which showed skiing movies every Friday evening, after the mall had closed. Okay, that's why I love winter sports - now, on with your challenge.
Um, the top countries on your list are Nordic countries. That is what they do. Period. That is what they do. Even France. Um, the French Alps. My first skiing hero was Jean Claude Killy. They have alps. The French ski like crazy. It's a cultural thing. But most French do not ski at all. The ones who live in the alps. Yes, they do, and they do it very well. The other winter sports - not so much. Norway - please. It's almost nothing but winter. Any winter sport will do - but mostly, those that take place on snow. Any kind of snow. Because most of the year - what else do they have to do? Look how far Germany is behind Norway, and Germany - especially now that it's united - has a much larger population. It also has a much longer winter season than most countries which are not Scandinavian. South Korea, we'll skip that because it was the host country.
Italy - they've got Alps, too. Okay. The U.S. has mountains. But nobody lives there. Only in California, the Rockies, and New England, does anybody actually live in the mountains. There are other cold places in the U.S., but almost nobody actually lives there - Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Idaho, please. And if you track the medal winners from the U.S. - those cold, and those cold and high places, are where the medal winners actually come from. Plot their populations against those of the big winners from Europe. (Don't plot California's total population, because, again, the Californians who live in cold places are minimal - very minimal).
Okay, now I get to the part of your study which I really love to come down on. Brazil. Almost all in the tropics or the semi-tropics. Show me some snow. Show me some altitude. Um. Whatever places there are in Brazil which have one - not to speak of having both - are comparatively uninhabited, and none of them have any relationships to mountainous and sport recreations.
Fun. Case closed.
I thank everyone for their comments.
To anonymous: let me get this - you didn’t like it?
To my good Parisian friend Charlie:
(his comment says: Why do you list Putin’s (whorelike) holy Russia - disqualified for cheating on its product?)
My reponse: j’ai seulement cité le nombre total de medailles gagnées par les athlètes Russes individuels, ceux qui n’ont pas triché. Mais je suis d’accord avec toi que le gouvernement Russe est très corrompu...(I only listed the total number of medals won by the individual Russia athletes who did not cheat. But I agree with you that the Russian government is very corrupt).
To Scott: Right, we (the US) are Number #24 in the world. Not too bad.
To Dave:
Right. Note that in my brief “analysis,” I allude to these facts: I mention climate, geography and culture. I thank you for elaborating those points. There is no mystery as to why some regions produce more winter athletes than others.
I also realize that any observations about different levels of national performance in any area can border on ethnocentrism, if the insinuation is that one country/region/group/race is therefore “better” than another. I want to stay away from that, and in fact I preface myself saying that I offer this list as an antidote to chauvinism.
Also, I do understand it if you get queasy whenever invidious distinctions and rankings are made between nations, or any other groups, in terms of some area of achievement. While I did precisely that in this post, don’t think that I am not ambivalent about this exercise.
Post a Comment
Please limit your comment to 300 words at the most!