Not being someone who has done much but watch the occasional Olympic game and track the “medal count” in the paper, I guess I have to admit I really don’t think in depth about the Olympic Games. After doing a bit of looking around, it appears the Olympic Committee does not even officially recognize the overall medal count. So why do we put so much stock in them? My father-in-law, Peter Main, being a thinking man of retirement age, had some time to ponder the proceedings this year. As he watched the games and the medal tallies each night, he began feeling the traditional medal count is simply unfair.
In fact, Olympic gold medalist and longtime amateur sports advocate Donna de Varona says, “The medal count is not a good thing. Let’s look at how wealthy we are and what advantages we have. The (developing) countries don’t often win medals; so when they do it’s a surprise. When that happens, we should be focusing on that and celebrating that. Their struggle is always going to be much greater than ours. This is about the world. It’s not about us.”
During the Cold War, the medal counts had meaning because the Communist Bloc placed a high importance on sport within its culture. Back then the USA didn’t always come out on top and so the “fight” between the USA and the Communist Bloc was fought on the field.
Olympic wrestling gold medalist Jeff Blatnick agrees. “It was one thing back (in the days of the USSR and East Germany) because it was sort of a natural enemy thing. The idea is to judge how you’re doing as a nation within your sport, which is fine. But as a wrestler I never thought about the overall medal count. For an athlete, you’re wondering about how you’re doing, how your friends are doing, and how your teammates are doing. You’re not thinking about the medal count. I’ve been inspired by many international athletes, including people who never won a medal. I never looked at it from a macro point of view.”
I did some hunting around the Internet, curious if anyone else had thought of this or come up with an alternative scoring method. Ironically they have. A gentleman named Bill Mitchell, Professor of Economics at the University of Newcastle in Callaghan New South Wales, Australia does the games each year weighted by GDP, Population, GDP per Capita, and by gender. The results there are strikingly similar with:
- North Korea first, Zimbabwe second, then Mongolia third in final GDP rankings.
- Jamaica bolted away from the others on the population weighted rankings. The Bahamas second and Iceland (a late medal winner) third.
- Rankings by gender now final. Males: The Bahamas, then Bahrain, then Iceland. Females: Jamaica, then Australia, then Norway.
His full results can be found here.
I have no idea why he started doing this but he makes a huge deal out of making it “just for fun and not to be taken seriously.” However, after looking at the results and thinking about it, maybe if we are going to count the medals we should do it fairly and with an honest look at success. Looking at the true value of the gold and not cheapening it by tallies that put it on an equal level with a bronze and also looking at the circumstances that these athletes have developed under. Were they in a developing country? What is the population of that country and maybe what is the wealth of that country?
Peter’s point is that there are two main issues with the current medal count. One, that counting all medals (gold, silver, or bronze) equally is unfair to winners (gold medalists), and, second, not taking account of the different populations of the countries concerned is also unfair to smaller countries. So, he worked out his own medals score, using four points for each gold, two for each silver, and one for each bronze, then dividing each country’s total point score by its population in millions. So, for your post-games pondering, here are the full results with the “Peter Main” method of scoring by points score:
