Random.Who Really Won the Olympics? Medal Tally Per Capita

So the real winners are: The Bahamas? Yes, the tiny country may only have won 2 medals (a gold and a bronze) but divide them up into equal parts between the population of the islands and they'd have the most metal to put on the mantel piece when the dust has settled on this year's Back to the Future Olympics in Athens.

Sure you can probably find this elsewhere on the web but it's fun to figure it out for yourself. Of course the US won the most medals (blah, blah, blah we won't go into the economics of why) but what if you take the populations of the participating countries into consideration? A quick Excel spreadsheet later and the answers are here: Who Really Won the Olympics?

Looking at the highlights of the table here we see some more surprises. The Bahamas are followed by Australia, Cuba, Estonia and Slovenia in the value-for-money stakes. Jamaica also did very well when looking at the results this way, of course here in the UK we've always known the Jamaicans are great athletes. Our shared heritage has meant many West Indians settle here in Britain with a lot to offer in both athletics and football.

Hosts Greece see little change in their ranking using the per Capita method moving from 15th to 10th. Around the 29th to 35th positions we see the largest European countries including Germany, Italy, France, Great Britain and Spain, who all perform badly when viewing the medal tallies in this way.

The US and Japan, usually great athletic powerhouses, do not look so powerful in the new table - both slip dozens of positions.

There are some surprises at the bottom of the table too. Bringing up the rear are countries who, for economic reasons alone, one would not expect to rank well in either versions of the table: Mexico, Colombia, Indonesia and Nigeria. Brazil's dominance of the world's favourite sport - football unfortunately does not transfer to athletics with only 18 medals to share amongst a population of 184 million. The wooden spoon goes to India with a single silver medal to share between a sixth of the world's population. However, the country whose medal tally is second, is almost bottom when looked at per Capita: China, who although winning 63 medals, has to divide those between 20% of the world's population.

Highlights: Olympic Medals 2004 Per Capita

Full Table: Olympic Medals 2004 Per Capita

PC Rank	Medal Rank	Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total	Population	Medals per Million Capita
1	52	Bahamas	1	0	1	2	299,697	6.67
2	4	Australia	17	16	16	49	19,913,144	2.46
3	11	Cuba	9	7	11	27	11,308,764	2.39
4	65	Estonia	0	1	2	3	1,341,664	2.24
5	64	Slovenia	0	1	3	4	2,011,473	1.99
6	34	Jamaica	2	1	2	5	2,713,130	1.84
7	59	Latvia	0	4	0	4	2,306,306	1.73
8	13	Hungary	8	6	3	17	10,032,375	1.69
9	33	Bulgaria	2	1	9	12	7,517,973	1.6
10	15	Greece	6	6	4	16	10,647,529	1.5
11	37	Denmark	2	0	6	8	5,413,392	1.48
12	26	Belarus	2	6	7	15	10,310,520	1.45
13	17	Netherlands	4	9	9	22	16,318,199	1.35
14	16	Norway	5	0	1	6	4,574,560	1.31
15	24	New Zealand	3	2	0	5	3,993,817	1.25
16	44	Croatia	1	2	2	5	4,496,869	1.11
17	29	Slovakia	2	2	2	6	5,423,567	1.11
18	71	Trinidad and Tobago	0	0	1	1	1,096,585	0.91
19	27	Austria	2	4	1	7	8,174,762	0.86
20	32	Georgia	2	2	0	4	4,693,892	0.85
21	14	Romania	8	5	6	19	22,355,551	0.85
22	45	Lithuania	1	2	0	3	3,607,899	0.83
23	42	Czech Republic	1	3	4	8	10,246,178	0.78
24	19	Sweden	4	1	2	7	8,986,400	0.78
25	46	Switzerland	1	1	3	5	7,450,867	0.67
26	3	Russia	27	27	38	92	143,782,338	0.64
27	50	Azerbaijan	1	0	4	5	7,868,385	0.64
28	9	South Korea	9	12	9	30	48,598,175	0.62
29	6	Germany	14	16	18	48	82,424,609	0.58
30	8	Italy	10	11	11	32	58,057,477	0.55
31	7	France	11	9	13	33	60,424,213	0.55
32	40	Kazakhstan	1	4	3	8	15,143,704	0.53
33	10	Great Britain	9	9	12	30	60,270,708	0.5
34	12	Ukraine	9	5	9	23	47,732,079	0.48
35	20	Spain	3	11	5	19	40,280,780	0.47
36	54	United Arab Emirates	1	0	0	1	2,523,915	0.4
37	62	Finland	0	2	0	2	5,214,512	0.38
38	21	Canada	3	6	3	12	32,507,874	0.37
39	71	Mongolia	0	0	1	1	2,751,314	0.36
40	1	United States	35	39	29	103	293,027,571	0.35
41	52	Israel	1	0	1	2	6,199,008	0.32
42	5	Japan	16	9	12	37	127,333,002	0.29
43	51	Belgium	1	0	2	3	10,348,276	0.29
44	61	Portugal	0	2	1	3	10,524,145	0.29
45	23	Poland	3	2	5	10	38,626,349	0.26
46	54	Ireland	1	0	0	1	3,969,558	0.25
47	49	Zimbabwe	1	1	1	3	12,671,860	0.24
48	71	Eritrea	0	0	1	1	4,447,307	0.22
49	58	North Korea	0	4	1	5	22,697,553	0.22
50	31	Taiwan	2	2	1	5	22,749,838	0.22
51	41	Kenya	1	4	2	7	32,021,856	0.22
52	39	Chile	2	0	1	3	15,823,957	0.19
53	34	Uzbekistan	2	1	2	5	26,410,416	0.19
54	62	Serbia and Montenegro	0	2	0	2	10,825,900	0.18
55	66	Paraguay	0	1	0	1	6,191,368	0.16
56	38	Argentina	2	0	4	6	39,144,753	0.15
57	66	Hong Kong	0	1	0	1	6,855,125	0.15
58	22	Turkey	3	3	4	10	68,893,918	0.15
59	43	South Africa	1	3	2	6	42,718,530	0.14
60	25	Thailand	3	1	4	8	64,865,523	0.12
61	54	Dominican Republic	1	0	0	1	8,833,634	0.11
62	28	Ethiopia	2	3	2	7	67,851,281	0.1
63	36	Morocco	2	1	0	3	32,209,101	0.09
64	29	Iran	2	2	2	6	69,018,924	0.09
65	69	Venezuela	0	0	2	2	25,017,387	0.08
66	46	Egypt	1	1	3	5	76,117,421	0.07
67	54	Cameroon	1	0	0	1	16,063,678	0.06
68	71	Syria	0	0	1	1	18,016,874	0.06
69	18	Brazil	4	3	3	10	184,101,109	0.05
70	2	China	32	17	14	63	1,298,847,624	0.05
71	60	Mexico	0	3	1	4	104,959,594	0.04
72	71	Colombia	0	0	1	1	42,310,775	0.02
73	48	Indonesia	1	1	2	4	238,452,952	0.02
74	69	Nigeria	0	0	2	2	137,253,133	0.01
75	66	India	0	1	0	1	1,065,070,607	<0.01

Random. Who Really Won the Olympics?

Medal Tally Per Capita

Highlights: Olympic Medals 2004 Per Capita

Full Table: Olympic Medals 2004 Per Capita

Random.
Who Really Won the Olympics?