Per Capita Medal Counts is this serious

Let�s get serious people I understand that there is an American dominance over the Olympics but now Australia is going to justify their lack of success by crying about population advantages. What�s next poverty rates, land mass, spoken foreign languages, obesity rate, percentage of homosexual competitors to actual population norm, crime statistics, percentage of medals to individuals ranging 15-30, amount of fast food consumed by athletes, yearly sexual activity of competitors, for the subjective judging we can start to look at judges ratings and their alliance with the given country they score, the incarceration rate, the educational norms, oh best of all we should get a percentage of athletes in each nation and then correlate that to medals won. I could go on but hopefully I have begun to make my point. Lets get real its just another year of USA dominance and sorry Russia you should have maintained your iron rule when you had it but now you lost all those other countries that would have increased your medal count. Oh well sucks to live anywhere else� sorry to all outside the USA readers don�t mean to offend just tired of all the BS about our supremacy. We had the greatest medal count in the Olympics deal with it!!!

Whatever. I 'm more concerned about the lack of support our athletes get than any medal production. One of our athletes actually had to purchase an emblem and sew it on herself. Sad.

in all fairness i've mainly heard just canada doing the crying about their lackluster accomplishments at the olmypics. in fact, i believe australia kicked canada's ass in medal count.

Originally posted by astroblade
in all fairness i've mainly heard just canada doing the crying about their lackluster accomplishments at the olmypics. in fact, i believe australia kicked canada's ass in medal count.

Yup, 17 medals. Let's wait for the Winter Olympics.

It's only Half-serious I think.
the Usual US bashers.
And the whole Band-wagon of followers..

Question is:
Why did China NOT scoop them all up? well? well?
Answer please.....

[edit on 30-8-2004 by spacedoubt]

Population does make a difference.
That's why the countries with high populations were all near the top.

Russia would likely have won the medal count if it had the population it had while it was still the USSR. As it is, with half the population of the US, it still did well with 92 medals vs 103.

Originally posted by astroblade
in all fairness i've mainly heard just canada doing the crying about their lackluster accomplishments at the olmypics. in fact, i believe australia kicked canada's ass in medal count.

Originally posted by intrepid
Yup, 17 medals. Let's wait for the Winter Olympics.

Let me guess, Labatts Luge? Perhaps Molson Moguls?

Canadian Monkeys, not just for bacon anymore....

AceofBase.

Sure, the bigger the "pool" the greater your chances of hitting the lottery
on a great athlete..I totally agree.

But I also think that a lot of people are purposely minimizing the US's achievments.

Then there is the US basketball "team"...they choked..they were 5 guys showing off..playing 5 games of one-on-one, as the Argentians put it..No teamwork..

Originally posted by Mirthful Me

Let me guess, Labatts Luge? Perhaps Molson Moguls?

Canadian Monkeys, not just for bacon anymore....

We kick butt at the donut dodge too.

When the USSR collapsed, Russia was seriously messed up. They�ve made pretty good progress under Putin thus far, but with the financial issues they still face, they just don�t have the money needed to pay the athletes, and maintain a successful system of training.

The Chinese took over the Soviet program, which leaves Russia to develop something new that�ll work for them. If you ask me, they did a fabulous job in Athens. The government doesn�t have the money to built high-tech training facilities. Russia is left with what they have to prepare its athletes.

With that in mind, look at Russia�s medal count, and then compare the US to Russia in terms of economic status. Once again, it�s clear the US indubitably has the money to pay for superior training facilities, the Russians don�t. In due time, they probably will. And when that happens, American dominance will be thrown out the window.

And if Russia doesn�t get its act together, the US will still face some challenges. In Athens the Chinese proved they have what it takes, and if they keep up their excellent work, well then, the US just may be dethroned as the sports champions.

As for Australia, I have no clue what's with their situation. The much smaller population, more than likely, might be a significant factor. But with my lack of general knowledge here, I won't say anything.

Australia has alot less people then countries like France and Germany and they won more medals.

Population

Australia=19,913,144
France= 60,424,213
Germany=82,424,609

Medals won

Australia=49
France=33
Germant=48

China has a estimated population of 1,298,847,624 why didnt they kill everyone in medal totals. This whole thing seems like alot of bunk to me.

www.infoplease.com...

sportsillustrated.cnn.com... medalTrackerByTotal.html

Originally posted by Flash__04
Let�s get serious people I understand that there is an American dominance over the Olympics but now Australia is going to justify their lack of success by crying about population advantages.

According to Price Waterhouse Coopers, population and economy are big factors.

Medal Predictions
In general the number of medals won increases with the population and economic wealth of a country, even though this tends to be less than proportionate.

[edit on 30-8-2004 by AceOfBase]

well they shoud just stop crying. THey have to rememebr alot of our good athletes who live here went to other countries to compete.

If we are going to argue anything lets not argue socioeconomic standing or total drawing population. Let us in the USA thank all you other countries over the years for giving us all your undesirables. See what we did with these people is slowly started to mix them all up into our little melting pot, salad bowl, whatever it is that you prefer and have made some tremendous athletes. It�s a matter of genetics we draw the best because we have shown so much tolerance and allowed all people to become one within our society. It is then our fault that we have excelled and found positive traits in those you just were willing to toss away. I am not speaking simply in a sense of currently but instead the entire scheme of the USA existence. It is through the rest of you that we have become great, so honestly take some credit if you didn�t want them all those years ago we would not be such a powerhouse now. Thank You World.

[edit on 8/30/2004 by Flash__04]

Originally posted by Mirthful Me

Let me guess, Labatts Luge? Perhaps Molson Moguls?

Canadian Monkeys, not just for bacon anymore....

Originally posted by intrepid
We kick butt at the donut dodge too.

Oh yeah, like a Canadian would dodge a donut... right. The beer consumption is based on a liquid carb diet too...

Damn MM that was funny, only because it's true. Here's members of our Olympic team in training:

Originally posted by Flash__04Let us in the USA thank all you other countries over the years for giving us all your undesirables.

As far as I know, no country has ever given up its 'undesirables.' Not one. I know of a few Russian athletes who now compete for the US, but they left on their own, because they are paid more here.

And that's just fine with me, and I'm sure every other Russian. If they're going to leave and represent another country for money, than they don't belong on our teams anyway.

I was speaking in the lifetime of our country that simple fact of its foundation being built on imigration of all people. I feel this has given us a great advantage in our athletic abilities.

Well, it's true that Australia had the best per capita result.
This Olympics wasn't a lack of success, we came 4th in the gold medal count, for a country of 20million that's incredible.
The only thing disappointing was loosing the 4*200m freestyle to the US. Now that event was meant to be a sure thing for us, loks like the US fluked iton the right day.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
China has a estimated population of 1,298,847,624 why didnt they kill everyone in medal totals. This whole thing seems like alot of bunk to me.

More to the point, the Soviet Union did well because they had stae sponsored camps for the lack of a better word were people just grew up doing nothing but thier sport. China is much the same way. Like a few years back when the chicom female swimmers were setting records and the coach shruged and said it was caterpillars in thier diet. If caterpillars is chinese for steriods then hes right

But I do lament the loss of the Warsaw pact athletes. Anybody who saw the Bulgarian Womens Shot Put Team and the heighth of the cold war knows what I am talking about