Jamaica tops medal standings…on a per capita basis

By the end of the Beijing Olympics, China should have the highest number of gold medals and the United States will have the most medals. Those are the statistics most folks will look at.

But if you look at the the number of gold medals won per capita (or per unit of population), Jamaica comes out top.

1st – Jamaica
2nd – Bahrain
3rd – Estonia
4th – New Zealand
5th – Georgia
6th – Australia

Further down the list, you will get:

14th – Britain
18th – South Korea
29th – United States
45th – China

If you look at TOTAL number of medals per capita, you’ll get the following ranking:

1st – Jamaica
2nd – Bahamas
3rd – Slovenia
4th – New Zealand
5th – Armenia
6th – Australia

43rd – United States
53rd – Singapore
66th – China

If you look at total medals per GDP, or how much money a country’s economy generates vis-a-vis one medal, here is the list:

1st – North Korea
2nd – Jamaica
3rd – Armenia
4th – Georgia
5th – Krygyzstan
6th – Tajikistan

29th – New Zealand

37th – Australia

41st – South Korea

43rd – China

51st – Great Britain

74th – United States

76th – Singapore

79th – Malaysia
80th – Japan

In all three metrics, Jamaica are tops in two and second in one while New Zealand and Australia stand out for their ability to generate a higher proportion of medals per capita compared to other wealthy countries like the United States and China.

However, more digital and print ink will be spilled over the number of golds won versus the total number of medals won (gold, silver, bronze). The United States media have traditionally shown their medal standings by the total number won but the Chinese have made everyone stand up and take notice with their best gold medal peformance since they rejoined the Olympic movement in 1984.

Source: http://www.symworld.com/medals/

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