Americans following the Olympics at home have been almost as pumped as their athletes are about their record haul of medals. “I have looked (at the medal count),” Viktoria Rebensburg told USA Today, after picking up a gold medal in the women’s giant slalom, “But I didn’t expect I could give a medal to this thing. I never thought that would happen, so it’s cool. And maybe we will win this.”
The United States hasn’t dominated a Winter Olympics since 1932. With 32 medals earned thus far, statistics guru Nate Silver predicts the U.S. will end the games with 34, ahead of Germany with 30, my adopted home-base of Canada with 26, and Norway with 23.
But wait a minute. The USA is a much bigger country than any of these. With 300 million-plus people it’s nearly four times the size of Germany, 10 times bigger than Canada, and 60-plus times bigger than Norway.
So with the help of my statistically minded colleagues at the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute, I decided to take a different kind of look. We rated and ranked medal performance by the size of each country’s population. We’ve dubbed this new ranking system the Winter Olympic Medals Per Capita Metric, WMPC for short, where we rank medals per one million people.
Now the results get interesting.
The U.S. ends up in 19th place, with roughly one medal per one million people, less than Australia and about the same as Poland. Germany ends up 14th and Canada ranks 10th with five times the take as the USA. The top finisher is tiny Norway with four-plus medals per one million of its people.
If Silver’s projections hold, the U.S. will end up in 21st place by the end of the games. Norway will top the list with five medals per one million people, followed by Austria in a distant second place with 1.9. Slovenia will come in third with 1.4, then Switzerland (1.3), Sweden (1.1), Latvia (1), Finland (.9), and Canada (.8).
What happens when we track medals historically, going back to 1924? The United States comes in 14th, with slightly less than 0.8 medals per one million people. Norway is far and away the dominant Winter Games force, taking home a whopping 62 medals per one million people. Scandinavia, the Nordic countries, and the European alpine nations are also powerhouses, with Finland earning 29, Austria 23, Switzerland 16, and Sweden 13. Estonia and the Netherlands produce about five medals per one million. Canada produces four – still five times the American rate and eighth overall. (Excluded from our analysis are the Soviet Union and several other former Eastern bloc nations that were initially bigger countries that have subsequently broken into smaller parts.)
Looked at this way, the USA seems a lot less dominant than it first appears.
February 27th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Looking at historical data, Germany has dominated the modern Olympics for decades until this year, still a close(ish) #2. Is it the inclusion of American-invented events like snowboarding that’s putting us ahead this time? Sort of like when they let the NBA players in Olympic basketball?
What if we ranked countries by the amount of land area that gets snow, or the length of their winter? Countries where a lot of the population participates in winter sports. The rank on the population charts probably make sense this way. Italy probably overachieves and Denmark under.
What if we just counted the US snow country above say the 45th parallel, plus Colorado & Utah? Italy has the Alps/Dolomites and maybe Denmark”s geography doesn’t lend itself to skiing?
February 27th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Of course I meant Germany has dominated the winter olympics.
February 27th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Actually, small countries get a huge advantage because the size of the teams is not proportional to population. If we had as many competitors per capita as Norway, we’d probably have more medals.
February 27th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
I’m Norwegian, and I think Aaron M. Renn has a point. In addition to that, you must remember that skiing is our national sport. Everybody in Norway has skies. Even immigrants.
Danish people, however, don’t go skiing. They have little snow, and no mountains. No fun to go skiing, in other words.
So, we’re very occupied with winter sports, especcially skiing, we are proud of our athlets’ achievements this wonderful Olympics, but we are also aware that for instance, Cross Country Skiing is a very small sport compared to for instance Camel Racing …
February 27th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
“Everybody in Norway has skies. Even immigrants.”
Bullocks. I’m norwegian as well, and I haven’t skied – not to mention owned skies – for at least 20 years. And I’m most certainly not alone.
What’s true, tough, is that skiing – and a lot of other winter sports – are popular in Norway. But it is a bit strange that countries with excactly the same climate as us and approx. the same number of inhabitants as us – such as Sweden and Finland – doesn’t come close to competing with us.
I think it has to do with a sence of national awereness when it comes to winter sports in Norway. We demand that our athleets win in winter sports. And if they don’t win we usually ask “What went wrong? We didn’t win! That can’t be right!??”. I guess that’s the kind of national mentallity that simply creates an “environment” for a lot of medals in most championships.
February 27th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
To “normalize” measurements (ie: everything else remaining equal) you must add the summer and winter olympic events together while also incorporating the per capita measurements. Also, immigrant-rich nations like Canada, USA and others are “disadvantaged” because cost of living and socio-economic issues affect the propensity for these peoples to participate in sports like this. In other words, how many recent immigrants to Canada (my country) have the wherewithal to afford and participzte (let alone perfect to Olypmic standards) any of the Olympic sports? Few! In fact, most are just happy to earn a living and make ends meet in a new nation. The New World nations are at a drastic disadvantage compared to the Old World nations (like western european nations) in this regard.
February 28th, 2010 at 2:43 am
“The U.S. ends up in 19th place, with roughly one medal per one million people.”
I think that should be roughly one per TEN million…
and those charts are per million capita…
IF Norway only had ten million citizens, it would make for an easier desciption…
let’s see…USA 36 medals/308 million peeps = 1/8.55mil
Norway 22 medals/5 million peeps = 1/ .22mil
So Norway did about 39X better than the USA…and to equal their success rate the USA would have needed to win approximately 1,400 medals…LOL-shut up Costas…
February 28th, 2010 at 2:54 am
and for the Canadians…25 medals/34 million peeps = 1/1.36mil…which comes out to 6.3X better…which means the USA would have needed about 225 medals to equal Canada’s performance…LOL – shut up Costas…
…and I’M an American – shut-up Americans…
February 28th, 2010 at 9:33 am
When does the amount of people matter when the amount of athletes that participate for each country are minute compared to the average of people in a particular country. Canada needs to stop looking for validation as to why they never come out on top in the final count. There are plenty of people that they could use to participate in regards to their head count in their country. I thought the Olympics was based on the best of the best of each country not per capita. So Canada stop the anti-americanism in your country since this article is based on validating why americans shouldn’t be consider the winners. This is suppose to be an event for all to enjoy and show each countrys talent – it has turned into a warfare between canada and the us and to be quite honest – as an american born from a canadian mother I am deeply disgusted with canadas’ attitude on all notes. One particular being the Americans choice to go to war after 9/11. Stop and think what Canada would have done if 3000 innocent lives were lost in a 15 minute period. If that had happened on canadian territory the usa would have backed up Canada, we definitely would not have sat and criticized your country to the degree that I no longer want to have anything to do with Canada and your fellow citizens. And just to add fuel to the fire. How come your Premier of Newfoundland came to the U.S.A. to receive medical care? Stay the hell out of here if we are so bad. Don’t shop here, don’t come here for medical resources that your own country denies you and last but not least, keep your athletes there as we really do not need them to be good. We are proud of our teams ALL OF THEM – baseball, soccer, football, hockey, etc. Learn some etiquette then talk to us. Boo—ing our national anthem was a disgrace to your people. Just like showing the drunks on your girls hockey team. I felt they won the gold fair and square but after seeing them show such disgregard to the gold medals on their necks while getting drunk. Well let’s just say, what other country has taken their personal achievements party out of the locker room in all of Olympic history? And then to try and validate their disrespect with an apology that follwed with a “BUT”. That’s exactly what Canada does best. Validate their unethical, rude and unacceptable actions. As far as Americans are concerned we have always been and will always be a proud people who do not need to put other countries down to feel better. Don’t you just wish you could live here…… usually actions as Canada has shown recently makes us even prouder as it shows how bad you guys really have it and how bad you want the freedom we have. Enjoy the 50% TAX YOU PAY TO HAVE HEALTH CARE. We have a choice for now and hopefully President Obama will not mold our society by Canadas’ as that would make us a very low self esteem, hypocritical society that we are not now and never have been. Our lives are not run by the government now as in Canada and hopefully we will never have to live that communistic stepping stone that Canadians are now living.
February 28th, 2010 at 9:37 am
I don’t think Aaron M. Renn’s point should be overlooked.
Perhaps you could use the number of athletes trying out for each olympic team to scale the “WMPC” value. It would be best that if the proportion of olympic hopefuls to population is equal for all countries, the WMPC scale would not change. As it is, I think the punishment for a large population is too high.
February 28th, 2010 at 11:52 am
“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.”
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Michael,Ola and Olsen have some good points. To further those here are some additional thoughts on those points that are consistent with my own.
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While the USA may have 300 million people not all 300 million would have access or inclination to participate in winter sports. The population of the southern US is all but excluded from participation. Canada, Switzerland and Norway are all snow bound and the ability to participate is virtually 100%. Therefore comparing countries total population to medal performance is IMHO to broad a metric.
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An improvement might be to look a countries population with the access and ability to participate in delivering medals. The criteria for this metric could be populations of countries in snow bound areas.
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Better yet an analysis of the capability and capacity of a country to deliver medal performances would be more relevant.
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For example;
-Canada, Russia, Sweden have rich and deep hockey ecosystems
-Norway, Finland have tremendous depth in various cross country skiing sports
-USA dominates downhill skiing
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Evaluating the ecosystems and support systems that groom athletes for winter sports should yield the ability to predict with perhaps greater precision the dominant powers in winter sports. The countries listed in the example above are far more likely to produce medal results in their respective sports regardless of their population base.
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While medals per general population are an interesting metric it lumps too much inert mass with excellence to produce meaningful intelligence with respect to dominance in winter sport.
February 28th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
I sat down last night to do the same math that the author presented here. Granted, it’s very simplistic data and most of the arguments regarding such are certainly valid…However…my intent in scratching out the crude results, and what would seem the authors too, was NOT statistical accuracy…
It was ONE thing:
Shut Up America, enough already – You did NOT “Win” the Olympics – have a little CONTEXT…ay yi yi…
February 28th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
[...] Olympic Medal Counting - Creative Class [...]
February 28th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
On a somewhat related note I wonder if on a per capita basis more Hollywood actors and singers grew up in Canada(i.e. William Shatner, Michael J Fox) than in the United States. They actually have a celebrity walk of fame in Toronto for the famous celebrities who are Canadian.
February 28th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Whoa, Lisa .. relax. My thoughts on the aim of this medal-count article, while presented with a lot of mathematical mumbo-jumbo, are that it was written as entertainment, a bit of humour, with tongue firmly in cheek. I may be wrong, it is possible, but it certainly felt like fun while I was reading it and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a rant about the politics of the United States of America. And as for “showing the drunks on your girls hockey team,” they aren’t drunks, they aren’t girls and it was the AP who chose to “show” them.
Oh and by the way Ian Grhaam, I am in Canada and am not now, nor have I ever been, snowbound (well, except for that one 4-day period in grade 12).
We did great and have much to be proud of, regardless of how you count the hardware.
February 28th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
Another interesting thought is that you get to #16 Japan before you get outside of North America & Europe. Japan has four times the population of Canada and dwarfs countries like Norway and Finland. For that matter the world’s two most populous nations, China and India, don’t show up at all. So maybe population isn’t a factor.
Why do the nations with the Alps and Rockies do well in winter sports while those with the Himalayas and Andes don’t? Is it because the sports themselves are of European origin and popular there, or that you have to be a rich country to afford high level Olympic training? Consider that the Olympic ban on professional athletes was originally to keep the lower classes out, as only those with leisure time could afford to train. Of course Japan is rich, so….?
All that said, congratulations to Canada for pulling this off, after what looked like a disastrous start and uncooperative weather. And for the medal count and coming from behind to be tops in gold.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:34 am
The Guardian newspaper in the UK has been doing the same “alternative medal count” for decades…
March 1st, 2010 at 3:41 pm
I got a good chance to make a fool of myself publically and took advantage of it. I must have totally misread the medal counts, or else CNN.com had them wrong yesterday (doubtful). Anyway, I see that South Korea got 14 medals and China 11, both ranking above Japan.
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:02 pm
Hi victoria,
Where in Canada do you live or is the name a hint and located on Vancouver Island?
there is very little of populated Canada from St John’s to Vancouver that doesn’t get snow.
Yes, congrats to the Canadian Olympic team. I had my crystal ball out in March of 2009 –
http://klondikeconsulting.com/blog/?p=410
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:13 pm
The real numbers game on who values the Olympics is the broadcast fees, not the medal counts…
http://www.olympic.org/Documents/fact_file_2010.pdf
In this category the United States wins hands down. For the 2010 and 2012 games $3.8 billion were raised through broadcast fees. This makes up over half of the IOC revenues. NBC provided $2 billion of of the $3.8 billion. Europe generated just under a billion in fees even with the Olympics taking place in London. Here is the breakdown in US dollars…
2,000,000,000 United StatesNBC
153,000,000 CanadaCTV
60,000,000 BrazilRecord
9,500,000 Latin AmericaESPN
8,000,000 Latin AmericaTerra
750,000 CarribeanIMC
153,000,000 ItalySky Italia
767,000,000 EuropeEBU
99,500,000 ChinaCCTV
367,000,000 JapanJC
33,000,000 KoreaSBS
2,000,000 PhillipinesSolar
14,880,000 Hong Kongi-Cable
10,000,000 Rest of AsiaABU
5,250,000 Rest of AsiaESPN Star
90,000 Chinese TaipeiElta
21,200,000 Arab StatesASBU/ART
16,000,000 South AfricaSABC
2,000,000 Sub-Saharan AfricaSABC
114,000,000 AustraliaNine
10,500,000 New ZealandSky Network
It doesn’t matter how you count the medals, if you are a member of the IOC you want the US winning. The IOC is looking to diversify its revenue streams for the next set of Olympics (why Chicago lost and Rio won). It will be interesting to see if the Olympic brand can generate value in South Asia, Russia, or South America as it has in the US, Europe, and Japan.