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Olympic Number Crunching

Posted: 3/15/2010

One of the things about being a numbers geek is that my proclivities take me places where normal people are not likely to venture.  So, for your viewing pleasure here is a summary of the medals per capita for the 10 leading medal winners during the Vancouver Olympics.  For the record, Norway's rate exceed's that of second place country (Austria) by about a factor of three.


Of course, Aldo made a salient point about snow and southerners and stuff, so I took a look at the most recent summer Olympic stats.  Much to my amazement, Norway was in a virtual dead heat with Australia for the highest medal rate.  

One can therefore plausibly conclude that Norway is the most athletic country per capita in the world.  Go figger.

Winter Olympics 2010
Country Medals  Pop (MM) Medals/10MM  Medals/U.S
United States 37  309.0  1.32  37
Germany 30  818  4.03  113
Canada 26  340  8.41  236
Norway 23  4.9  5163  1,450
Austria 16  8.4  2095  589
Russia 15  142.0  1.16  33
South Korea 14  497  3.10  87
Sweden 11  9.3  1301  365
China 11  1,336.0  0.09  3
France 11  654  1.85  52
Summer Olympics 2008
Country Medals  Pop (MM) Medals/10MM  Medals/U.S
United States 110  309.0  3.92  110
Germany 41  818  5.51  155
Canada 18  340  5.82  164
Norway 10  4.9  2245  631
Austria 3  8.4  3.93  110
Russia 72  142.0  5.58  157
South Korea 31  497  6.86  193
Sweden 5  9.3  5.91  166
China 100  1,336.0  0.82  23
France 40  654  6.73  189
Britian 72  624  1269  357
Australia 46  222  2279  640