"Things You Wouldn't Know If We Didn't Blog Intermittently."
15 February 2018
Winter Olympics medals adjusted for size of countries
The chart above was originally published in The Atlantic in the middle of the games; I don't know whether it has been updated to reflect the final counts.
Reposted (but not updated) from four years ago, because it's still interesting.
Yes and no. If the United States sent its best athletes in each event and they failed to medal, then sending 10 times as many who were worse than the ones who went wouldn't make any difference.
The Regressing sports blog did a similar analysis today, using the "medals per 100 athletes sent" metric. Similar results with regards to Norway, but some larger countries like the USA and Russia fair much better.
This of course is biased against larger countries as they can't send their top X% in whatever sport, only their top X number.
ReplyDeleteYes and no. If the United States sent its best athletes in each event and they failed to medal, then sending 10 times as many who were worse than the ones who went wouldn't make any difference.
ReplyDeleteThe Regressing sports blog did a similar analysis today, using the "medals per 100 athletes sent" metric. Similar results with regards to Norway, but some larger countries like the USA and Russia fair much better.
ReplyDeletehttp://regressing.deadspin.com/so-which-countries-had-the-worst-olympics-1529401518/@reubenfb