I was making a connection between the book, "You can't be president" by MacArthur and the Olympic phenomenon, "you can't be a medal winner." Basically my hypothesis is that the higher the number of athletes (which plays into a whole host of factors about a countries wealth, opportunity, and potential favoritism) directly indicates how many medals you will win. Now, if I am on to something here, which perhaps I'm not, this would lead one to believe that the Olympics are not in fact, The Worlds Games, the place where anyone from any country can be a champion.
My initial interest in this topic stemmed from the fact that the coverage of the Olympics in the US is entirely skewed towards American events, athletes, and interests. I understand this from a marketing perspective but are the Olympic Games just one more place for the US to flex it's super-power muscle? Are these games some puffed chest, intimidation tactic played out a winter battle-ground? lets look at the numbers...
Of course, the games are not over. As of right now the medal count is as follows:
Country, Medal count, number of athlete, percentage of athletes winning medals
USA 32 215 14.88372093
Germany 26 153 16.99346405
Norway 19 99 19.19191919
Canada 17 206 8.252427184
Russia 13 177 7.344632768
Austria 12 81 14.81481481
South Korea 11 46 23.91304348
China 10 90 11.11111111
France 10 108 9.259259259
Switzerland 8 146 5.479452055
Sweden 8106 7.547169811
Netherlands 6 34 17.64705882
Czech Republic 5 92 5.434782609
Poland 4 50 8
Japan 4 94 4.255319149
Italy 4 109 3.669724771
Turns out there is basically no strong correlation between these things, at least I can't see one (i'm not a scholar) I just had a lot of time on my hands today because Filter Coffeehouse & Espresso bar isn't open yet. But wow, props to countries like Netherlands and South Korea for really grabbing a lot of Medals even though they don't have a ton of folks in the games. Netherlands I might assume, since it is the winter Olympics, but S. Korea good for you!
1 comment:
ooo, that data that took me sooo long to collect looks like crap!
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