The Olympic medal count is unofficial, not something officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee. Still, the count is universally reported and widely known. (Even the IOC puts the count for each games on its web site, but says: "The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not recognise global ranking per country; the medal tables are displayed for information only.") Officially, medals are awarded to individuals, though these individuls do represent national teams.
During the Cold War, Americans fretted they were losing ground to the Soviet Union, which won the medal race between 1972 and 1992, after which the USSR team broke up into teams representing Russia and the various former republics. (The USSR itself disbanded before 1992, but in the 1992 Barcelona games, there was a "Unified Team" of the ex-Soviet Union.)
Unofficial though it may be, the medal count is of great interest to Americans and other nations. This year, the U.S. won the count with 110 medals, though China scored by far the most golds. If the counting is to be done, there should be some division along with the arithmetic. Huge nations like China and the U.S. will naturally best smaller countries like Cuba or Australia. But if one divides the totals by population, a far different standing emerges. Here is a medal count that includes the 37 nations that won at least six medals, divided by population. (It's hard to read in blogspot, but the last column is the he number of medals won per million people in each nation listed.)
Rank Country GOLD SILVER BRONZE TOTAL POP. (millions) Medals per Million
1 Jamaica 6 3 2 11 3 3.667
2 New Zealand 3 1 5 9 4 2.250
3 Australia 14 15 17 46 21 2.190
4 Cuba 2 11 11 24 11 2.182
5 Armenia 0 0 6 6 3 2.000
6 Norway 3 5 2 10 5 2.000
7 Belarus 4 5 10 19 10 1.900
8 Georgia 3 0 3 6 4 1.500
9 Netherlands 7 5 4 16 11 1.455
10 Denmark 2 2 3 7 5 1.400
11 Slovakia 3 2 1 6 5 1.200
12 Hungary 3 5 2 10 10 1.000
13 Azerbaijan 1 2 4 7 8 0.875
14 Kazakhstan 2 4 7 13 15 0.867
15 Britain 19 13 15 47 61 0.770
16 Switzerland 2 0 4 6 8 0.750
17 South Korea 13 10 8 31 48 0.646
18 France 7 16 17 40 64 0.625
19 Czech Republic 3 3 0 6 10 0.600
20 Ukraine 7 5 15 27 46 0.587
21 Russia 23 21 28 72 142 0.507
22 Germany 16 10 15 41 82 0.500
23 Italy 8 10 10 28 60 0.467
24 Spain 5 10 3 18 46 0.391
25 Romania 4 1 3 8 21 0.381
26 Kenya 5 5 4 14 38 0.368
27 United States 36 38 36 110 305 0.361
28 Poland 3 6 1 10 38 0.263
29 North Korea 2 1 3 6 24 0.250
30 Uzbekistan 1 2 3 6 27 0.222
31 Japan 9 6 10 25 128 0.195
32 Argentina 2 0 4 6 40 0.150
33 Canada 3 9 6 18 128 0.141
34 Turkey 1 4 3 8 71 0.113
35 Ethiopia 4 1 2 7 79 0.089
36 Brazil 3 4 8 15 186 0.081
37 China 51 21 28 100 1326 0.075
Jamaica, with just three million people and 11 medals, not surprisingly wins this medal count thanks to the strength of Usain Bolt and its amazing sprinters. Small but sports mad New Zealand, Australia and Cuba come in second third and fourth.
Among the big nations, Russia does best with just over a half medal per million in population, followed by the U.S. China comes in last.
Of course there are many ways to sort the results, and none of them are fair. No matter how many people there may be in the U.S., it can still field just one basketball team and one team in each of the relays. China can only field one gymnastics team and one ping pong squad, though if China or the U.S. could field more athletes, it would win even more prizes. But it still seems to me that there has to be some accounting for population or other metrics. That's when the true sports powers emerge.
Showing posts with label olympics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label olympics. Show all posts
Monday, August 25, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Olympic Magic Marker
Am I crazy or were the letters 'USA' on the U.S. relay team bibs written in magic marker? That's how it looked. The other teams had printed letters on their bibs. Is this symbolic of lack of training for the race?
Olympics: a history of dropping the baton
It's basically ridiculous to link national fortunes to Olympic success, but the fact that both the U.S. sprinters, both the the men and the women, dropped the baton in the first round of the 4 x 100 meter relay gives me the chills.
It's hardly the first time.
The U.S. men dropped the baton in the 2005 World Championships.
Some history from Sports Illustrated:
S.I. attributes the pattern to inexperienced runners. But no one who make an Olympic team is inexperienced. They have all run in college and in high school and before that and after that internationally. It's unsettling. Perhaps because dropping the baton is a metaphor for a big mistake in life. And despite Jamaica and Usain Bolt, the U.S. is so deep in sprinting (as in basketball) that its should never lose a relay, but it often does by making mistakes that high school kids should not make. Maybe other countries have the same problem and we just don't notice. I don't know. But we notice when we do it and it take us back.
It's hardly the first time.
The U.S. men dropped the baton in the 2005 World Championships.
Some history from Sports Illustrated:
At the 1995 Worlds in Gothenburg, Sweden, John Drummond and the very
inexperienced Tony McCall botched the second handoff in the first round and
the U.S. team did not advance. At the 1997 Worlds, the very inexperienced
Brian Lewis and Tim Montgomery botched the first handoff and the U.S. team
did not
advance. (We won't even mention a similar problem at the 1988
Olympics in Seoul,
because that was a very long time ago).
S.I. attributes the pattern to inexperienced runners. But no one who make an Olympic team is inexperienced. They have all run in college and in high school and before that and after that internationally. It's unsettling. Perhaps because dropping the baton is a metaphor for a big mistake in life. And despite Jamaica and Usain Bolt, the U.S. is so deep in sprinting (as in basketball) that its should never lose a relay, but it often does by making mistakes that high school kids should not make. Maybe other countries have the same problem and we just don't notice. I don't know. But we notice when we do it and it take us back.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
USA Olympic Basketball: Great but not Good
USA basketball seems to be back on track, winning games by 30 or more. The difference is the players seem to have remembered how to shoot. When I last looked at the numbers for the Wall Street Journal in 2003, NBA teams were shooting on average 44% from the field, an all-time low. Last year, they averaged 46%. While the U.S. team actually shot poorly early in the 2008 Olypic tournament, against Australia the team shot 57% from the field and 41% from three-point range en route to a 116-85 blowout.
Compare these numbers to the 2002 World Basketball Championship, in which NBA pros placed a shocking sixth. Americans dominated statistically in nearly every category. They finished at or near the top in rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, even scoring. The one exception: shooting. There the U.S. tied for fifth. Medalists Yugoslavia, Argentina, and Germany all shot better. Now the U.S. is shooting well, too, except from the free-throw line, where they still stink.
Of course, the improve shooting percentage is aided by the number of dunks generated by steals and offensive rebounds, in which the much quicker and stronger NBA players excel. If you watch the Redeem Team try to generate a good shot from a set half-court offense, they still flounder, not knowing how to move the ball or hit the open man nearly as well as the top European squads. (I wonder how a team of white Americans would fare? Team USA is all African-American.) Good thing for them, they don't have to rely on half-court fundamentals to win.
Compare these numbers to the 2002 World Basketball Championship, in which NBA pros placed a shocking sixth. Americans dominated statistically in nearly every category. They finished at or near the top in rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, even scoring. The one exception: shooting. There the U.S. tied for fifth. Medalists Yugoslavia, Argentina, and Germany all shot better. Now the U.S. is shooting well, too, except from the free-throw line, where they still stink.
Of course, the improve shooting percentage is aided by the number of dunks generated by steals and offensive rebounds, in which the much quicker and stronger NBA players excel. If you watch the Redeem Team try to generate a good shot from a set half-court offense, they still flounder, not knowing how to move the ball or hit the open man nearly as well as the top European squads. (I wonder how a team of white Americans would fare? Team USA is all African-American.) Good thing for them, they don't have to rely on half-court fundamentals to win.
Olympics: the Great Saytiev
Michael Phelps has been hailed as the greatest Olympian on the strength of his eight gold medals. Phelps is great, no doubt about it, and I guess he is the greatest swimmer. But basing conclusions on medal counts is ridiculous. Swimmers by nature can get multiple medals. There are four races at some of the same distances using different strokes. The same guy can get three four medals by doing the same 100 or 200 meter freestyle: two individual races, the freestyle relay and medly relays. The result is multiple medal winners proliferate. Just this year, at least 30 swimmers won more than one medal. Five swimmers won at least four medals.
Compare that to track and field where just two men (Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis) have ever won four medals in the same games. And a wrestler or boxer can win just one. There are no relays, leta alone multiple relays, to boost the medal total. So counting medals by itself is a a ridiculous measure.
If one is searching for greatness, consider Buvaysa Saytiev. Today, Saytiev won his third gold medal in freestyle wrestling. Only the Soviet Union’s Alexander Medved, who won in 1964, 1968 and 1972, has done the same. Medved has the advantage because he won in three different weight classes. But Saytiev, unlike Medved, had to beat fields that include wrestlers from former Soviet republics, which now have their own terrific teams. In the finals, Saytiev beat Soslan Tigiev of Uzbekistan. One bronze-medalist is from Belarus. (The other is from Bulgaria.) There are great wrestlers from Georgia, Armenia and Kazahkstan. It's as if the USA basketball team was broken up and there were individual teams from California, New York and Ohio competing with the U.S. team. In general it's impossible to compare athletes in different sports. But in terms of outdistancing the field, Saytiev stands with Phelps.
Compare that to track and field where just two men (Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis) have ever won four medals in the same games. And a wrestler or boxer can win just one. There are no relays, leta alone multiple relays, to boost the medal total. So counting medals by itself is a a ridiculous measure.
If one is searching for greatness, consider Buvaysa Saytiev. Today, Saytiev won his third gold medal in freestyle wrestling. Only the Soviet Union’s Alexander Medved, who won in 1964, 1968 and 1972, has done the same. Medved has the advantage because he won in three different weight classes. But Saytiev, unlike Medved, had to beat fields that include wrestlers from former Soviet republics, which now have their own terrific teams. In the finals, Saytiev beat Soslan Tigiev of Uzbekistan. One bronze-medalist is from Belarus. (The other is from Bulgaria.) There are great wrestlers from Georgia, Armenia and Kazahkstan. It's as if the USA basketball team was broken up and there were individual teams from California, New York and Ohio competing with the U.S. team. In general it's impossible to compare athletes in different sports. But in terms of outdistancing the field, Saytiev stands with Phelps.
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