# Why Australia Is Dominating the Olympics



## David Baxter PhD (Aug 17, 2008)

Why Australia Is Dominating the Olympics
August 17, 2008

It's absurd to track who's "winning" the Olympics. We shouldn't do it. But, of course, we're human, so we do. 

Yahoo! Sports says the United States is beating China, followed by Australia, France and Russia. Why? Because the U.S. has 54 medals, compared with the other countries' respective 47, 25, 22 and 21 overall medals. But China has 27 gold medals, and and the U.S. has 16. Surely gold medals are worth more than silver, and silver more than bronze. So is China "winning"?

The medal competition between China and USA really masks extremely impressive national Olympic achievement by smaller countries. Simply counting medals is like comparing relative math ability among high school students not by averaging test scores, but adding them up. We don't do that for academics. Why do we do it with sports? Deep down, we all know the "just-add-up-the-medals" "scoring system" is wrong.

If we're going to pick winners in the national medal count -- and we are -- I think we should use a system that comes closer to fairly rewarding real national achievement. 

There are many factors that contribute to Olympic greatness. The major factors include: 


Population
Per-capita income
State control of Olympic training
Cultural tradition of sport
Gender equality
Of these five, China is advantaged by factors 1, 3 and 5. The United States is advantaged by 2, 4, and 5. 

Some MIT genius could build a software program that takes into account all these factors. But it would be too complex for practical use. Also: It makes some sense to "reward" countries for factors 2-5. 

I'd like to propose a simple system that normalizes for two factors: 


population; and 
medal "quality."
By doing this, you immediately eliminate the advantage of population, and give countries of all sizes a fair shot. Then, you rightfully account for the fact that gold is better than silver, and silver better than bronze. 

Here's the system:

Each gold gets 300 points, silver 200, and bronze 100 points. Add up the points, then divide by millions of population. Whoever has the biggest number wins.

So let's see how various countries do using this system. 

As of this writing, the United States had 16 gold, 16 silver and 22 bronze medals, and has a population of about 300 million. So multiplying gold medals by 300, silver medals by 200, and bronze by 100, the U.S. gets 10,200 medal points. Now divide by the number of million population -- in America's case, 300 -- the USA currently earns a score of 34. 

Let's do China. As of this posting, China had 27 gold medals, 13 silver and 7 bronze and a population of 1.3 billion. That gives China more medal points than the United States -- 11,400 medal points -- but after dividing by China's massive population, it gets a lower score of just under 9. 

So the U.S. is clobbering China. But other countries are clobbering the United States. Using this same system, the top three Olympic countries are: 

#1: Australia (235 points)
#2: Cuba (118 points)
#3: South Korea (87 points)​Of course, this system isn't perfectly fair. But I do believe it's fairest *simple* system for scoring -- and infinitely more telling than just adding up medals and ignoring population size and medal quality. And I believe it accurately recognizes the colossal achievement of smaller countries -- especially Australia and Cuba, who should be the real national stars of the games thus far.

That Australia is dominating the Olympics makes intuitive sense, too. Compared with overall medal leader USA, Australia has a little less than half the medals as the United States, but less than 6 percent of the population. That kind of incredible Olympic achievement should be loudly recognized.


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## Daniel (Aug 17, 2008)

Of course, if we really want to get super obsessed, we would also look at the degree to which one country beat another in a certain event, e.g. the amount of milliseconds between gold, silver, and bronze winners.


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## sister-ray (Aug 17, 2008)

I can think of better things to think about! I dont even watch it


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## Halo (Aug 17, 2008)

That article was awesome, being a *huge* Olympics fan mysef  

I love the way the author used population as a factor...makes sense to me


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## Daniel (Aug 17, 2008)

> I love the way the author used population as a factor...makes sense to me



I had thought about that before, but then I thought: Why should countries who took the initiative in having more babies and conquering other territories get penalized?     (Of course, I'm not completely serious about this.)


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## tjgrahamcracker (Aug 21, 2008)

This is very interesting, but I feel that when it comes to the level of scientific training that results in these extroardinary athletes it is more an issue of money than anything.  I saw an actress on tv recently who wanted to run in a marathon...  I could see like 4 or 5 trainers of hers in the 2 minute segment!  Combined with a dietician which she probably has(because she can afford it) and some of the technology you might see on NOVA, that's available anywhere given that you have the money, toss in some natural talent, and personal ambition and you've got a winner...  It seems to me that a relatively small population of very wealthy people could be very successful in the olympics.  Then again, there are people from countries who don't have such means that produce amazing athletes.  I guess as an American it simplifies things to put things in Silver, Gold and Bronze.  People are very preoccupied with what they have, and where it places them here.  A certain gaggle of people might start giving you attention when you start wearing a certain shirt to school-no joke!  Anyway, maybe it makes the games more accessible or something to simplify it like that?  Even still, why should people beat themselves up over seconds, or fractions of seconds because they made them "lose"?  How many years of their time did they pour into preparing for their event for such a simple validation?  The whole thing seems fairly ludicrous to me.  I think it's great that we can come together as a planet to compete...  But then when a war springs up or some sort of political hatred, countries don't show up.  Couldn't we use our time more wisely, maybe ditch the whole "I'm an <insert nationality> so how I perform reflects the excellence of my country."  Because every country has problems, I know we do here.  And no matter how well we do in this happy little charade it's not going to change anything.  

Maybe I'm missing something.  Do the olympics inspire?  I've watched very little in the past.  I like competition a lot, but professional sports don't interest me much except for football.  I mean, I guess you could say it wouldn't make any difference how the olympics are done, but people don't watch the U.N. debate...  Not nearly as many people as watch the olympics.  I bet they could do a lot to sway people's opinions of other countries.  I watched some old episodes of SNL and it was amazing.  Those people were truly talented.  But that ran out and nowadays it doesn't compare.  Positive attitudes aren't all that difficult to adopt, and everybody can do it.  Why don't we put those people in charge of the olympics and make it a habit?

Well anyway, I guess if I'm so interested in the Olympics I should probably watch it at least.  I hope everybody is doing well on here and passing the time, like our planetary-pastime.


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## Daniel (Aug 21, 2008)

Certainly, I wish the Olympics could do more to bring people together and accelerate political changes like freeing Tibet.



> Maybe I'm missing something. Do the olympics inspire?



On the positive side, I started exercising more, at least during the start of the Olympics  

BTW, a blast from the past:



> The movie is based on the true story of two British athletes competing in the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. Englishman Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), who is Jewish, overcomes anti-Semitism and class prejudice in order to compete against the "Flying Scotsman", Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), in the 100 metre race.
> 
> ...The story compares the similar athletic experiences of Abrahams and Liddell while portraying their vastly different characters and reactions to adversity.
> 
> Chariots of Fire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




FOXNews.com - Ancient Greek Computer Calculated Olympics


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## tjgrahamcracker (Aug 21, 2008)

Wow that movie looks really good, I'll have to see if my parents have that.


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