With the 2020 Olympics finally behind us, some are wondering as to the fairness of the medal table. After all, the USA is almost always top of the heap. But what if that were recalculated a little, perhaps accounting for GDP per capita?
Nanjing’s very own Guo Li was one of the Chinese to bring home a medal from Tokyo, as expected. Her and her team picked up a silver in synchronised swimming. That’s two silver Olympic medals now for 28-year-old Guo.
It helped, but not enough, to beat out the USA to the top spot. But it wasn’t that much of a surprise. After all, it, China and Russia (represented in Tokyo as ROC) have pretty much dominated the upper echelons of the league table for more years than anyone can remember.
One of the pleasant exceptions to the USA in pole position was of course 2008, when China was top, with its athletes on home turf in Beijing. The host usually fares pretty well.
Nevertheless, the fact remains, wealthy counties do better at the Olympics. In this recent Olympic outing, the top ten by medal count went USA, China, ROC, Great Britain, Japan, Australia, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and France.
Obviously, these are the counties with better sports infrastructures, greater government investment, the best paid coaches, the coolest marketing, etc.
It’s not, as we say, pardon the pun, a particularly level playing field.
Time for a rethink.
And actually, if recalculated by GDP per capita, the medal table looks very different. Like really, really, really different.
For by GDP per capita, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic medal table now goes China, ROC, Kenya, Ukraine, Uganda, Ethiopia, India, Brazil, Iran and Uzbekistan.
And in such a scenario, the USA comes in at number 15, revealed the BBC on 10 August.
Interestingly, the league tables are not only skewed in favour of the rich. If you are only good at team sports, you don’t do well at the Olympics. But if your sport requires little infrastructure, your chances are better.
Take India and Ethiopia as examples. The former is fantastic at cricket, as everyone knows. But that’s not even an Olympic discipline. Hockey is, however, and Indians are also good at that. But there is only a maximum of two Olympic medals to be won in hockey.
For the latter, Ethiopians have won 55 Olympic medals, and every last one has been in long-distance running events. The reason? The low-pressure, high-altitude mountains of Ethiopia, where athletes train and with little in the way of support services.
That’ll toughen you up.
