News 2024 Summer Olympic Games Discussion

[Orodruin]

Counting medals would make gold as much worth as bronze, which is ridiculous. Either a point distribution like 5-3-1, 5-3-2, or counting golds first (essentially $\infty-1-\epsilon$) would make some sort of sense. That's of course forgetting that sports are not all equal. Some sports, like swimming, have several disciplines where a dominant athlete can rake home a large number of golds (Michael Phelps, anyone?), whereas others may not have a large amount of countries where the sport is popular (ice hockey has what, at most 6 or 7 countries that are really capable of winning? CAN, USA, SWE, FIN, RUS, CZE, maybe SWZ - the last time a team not in the "big six" won the Olympic ice hockey tournament was Nazi Germany in 1936 ...) Then you have sports that in contrast have only a single gold medal that is highly contested among many countries.

Should you take population into account? Well, that's entirely up to you. I'll just lay it out there that Dominica won a gold (women's triple jump) with a population just north of 70000. To get to that level of gold per capita, the US would have to win about 4700 gold medals (nb, this is impossible, the 2024 Olympic games featured a grand total of 329 events).

 

[Vanadium 50]

@Orodruin do you think France beat Australia? Or the other way? Or does the whole idea of ranking countries make no sense?

PS Dominica may lead the world in physics papers per capita. Harrison Prosper is from there.

 

[Orodruin]

Or does the whole idea of ranking countries make no sense?

This. At least not in a serious and unique manner.

 

[russ_watters]

Medal count is far more a function of money (both direct support and overall economy) than population. The Filipino gymnast mistakenly called the Philippines a small country. It's bigger than every "western" country except the US. Its's just poor.

Winning anything is nice to see(especially with China second and Russa not on the list), but yeah, it isn't exactly a fair or necessarily meaningful competition.

 

[Orodruin]

Medal count is far more a function of money (both direct support and overall economy) than population.

This is true. An interesting measure would be to see golds per gdp …

 

[Orodruin]

Along those lines, the Swedish Olympic Committee had a gold bonus of zero. The Finnish counterpart about $60k. Some Swedish athletes complained before the games. I don’t understand … SOC and FOC paid out exactly the same amount in gold bonuses

 

[russ_watters]

Along those lines, the Swedish Olympic Committee had a gold bonus of zero. The Finnish counterpart about $60k. Some Swedish athletes complained before the games. I don’t understand … SOC and FOC paid out exactly the same amount in gold bonuses

The US's is $38,000. The Philippines is $173,000, a condo and a lifetime supply of Ramen(ok, that last one is more or less an endorsement bonus). The US, Fins and Swedes probably think the financial support for their training is enough for the government to spend* and the endorsements will dwarf that. I read once that in the US a gold is worth about $1M in endorsements, though mileage is of course going to vary. Google tells me Simone Biles made $7M last year alone. She has 11 medals, 7 of them gold. There's probably an escalating return though.

*In 9 seconds I couldn't find a good source other than that it tends to cost the olympians a few thousand a month for training and related expenses. That's on them and their families, but doesn't address the cost of the stipends, training facilities, events, international competition support, etc. paid for by the government.

 

[ergospherical]

R.E. the above. This was one model I saw mentioned by the NYT some days ago. Too much time on their hands? Interesting nonetheless. :)

https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-sports-analytics/jsa240874

Ranking countries in the Olympic Games by medal counts clearly favors large-population countries over small ones, while ranking by medals-per-capita produces national rankings with very small population countries on top. We discuss why this happens, and propose a new national ranking system for the Olympics, also based upon medals won, which is inclusive in the sense that countries of widely-varying population can achieve high rankings. This population-adjusted probability ranking ranks countries by how much evidence they show for high capability at Olympic sports. In particular, it ranks countries according to how improbable their medal counts would be in an idealized reference model of the Games which posits that all medal-winning nations have equal propensity per capita for winning medals.

 

[Orodruin]

R.E. the above. This was one model I saw mentioned by the NYT some days ago. Too much time on their hands? Interesting nonetheless. :)

https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-sports-analytics/jsa240874

The problem with that model being that most regular people would struggle to understand it. Dividing medal count by population is already pushing it for some ….

It also makes some assumptions that are questionable. For example, a country with a top heavy age pyramid will not have the same proportion of the population at its physical prime, which affects outcome, etc. then there is the entire economy question to consider

 

[BillTre]

The problem with that model being that most regular people would struggle to understand it. Dividing medal count by population is already pushing it for some ….

This should not really make it bad for the more hard core sports fans. there are plenty of spsorts statistic that are complicated and not well understood by the normal fans but are accepted as being reflective of performance in some way.
Plenty of good examples could be found in both football (American) and baseball.
Ask several people to explain quarterback performance statistics.

 

[Orodruin]

Plenty of good examples could be found in both football (American) and baseball.
Ask several people to explain quarterback performance statistics.

I feel this obsession with sports statistics is largely a US phenomenon.

 

[robphy]

If you're going to rank countries by other than just medal count, I would suggest population size but also size of their economy.

Medal count is far more a function of money (both direct support and overall economy) than population. The Filipino gymnast mistakenly called the Philippines a small country. It's bigger than every "western" country except the US. Its's just poor.

An interesting measure would be to see golds per gdp …

Who won the Olympics based on how much money it took to win?
How much does it cost to win gold?
By James Dator Updated Aug 12, 2024, 9:33am EDT
https://www.sbnation.com/2024/8/8/24215406/2024-olympic-medal-count-ranked-gdp-money

 

[berkeman]

Who won the Olympics based on how much money it took to win?
How much does it cost to win gold?
By James Dator Updated Aug 12, 2024, 9:33am EDT
https://www.sbnation.com/2024/8/8/24215406/2024-olympic-medal-count-ranked-gdp-money

It goes without saying that money plays a huge role in sporting success. From physically sending athletes, to having well-funded training — it’s critical to have at least some money behind you in order to win in the Olympics.

 

[BillTre]

Who won the Olympics based on how much money it took to win?
How much does it cost to win gold?
By James Dator Updated Aug 12, 2024, 9:33am EDT
https://www.sbnation.com/2024/8/8/24215406/2024-olympic-medal-count-ranked-gdp-money

That article has an interesting table.
I wonder how normalizing across countries for average cost of living or something like that.