Jamaica Flogs Super Powers In Beijing Olympics

August 25th, 2008

We live in a world of political correctness, where funnily enough, bigger is better - and only first counts. Kids are brought up by society to be fair, yet only first counts. Beautiful, skinny and georgeous is the image and many kids think that they are less than the rest due to this unfair image. China, USA and Russia were the biggest and best in the Olympic Medals Race. They have the most money and population and did great but how did they really fare?

Where did the smaller countries like Jamaica fare? I wanted to know this and did some research. So, in good old Aussie fashion, I’ll “Stick One Up” the Sports Super Powers with a little Olympic Medal Tally of my own. It’s time for the smaller nations with less money, muscle and guns to get some glory.

All the figures below are real. Let’s just look at it from a different perception than the media has given us. This is the official medal tally of the Beijing Olympics as I got it from the newspapers.

Gold Total
Rank Medals Medals
1 China 51 100
2 USA 36 110
3 Russia 23 72
4 United Kingdom 19 47
5 Germany 16 41
6 Australia 14 46

Population Per Medal

Now, let’s have a look at how many medals (Gold, Silver and Bronze) that the countries got Per Capita. I worked out how many people each country had per medal in the Beijing Olympics. These are the best performing countries ranked by Total Medals and Country Population. Take note where the top 5 official medal countries end up.

Total Population Per Country
Rank Medals (Any) Medal Population
1 Jamaica 11 246,727 2,714,000
2 Australia 46 465,094 21,394,309
3 Cuba 24 469,500 11,268,000
4 New Zealand 9 475,000 4,275,000
5 Norway 10 477,800 4,778,000
15 United Kingdom 47 1,297,340 60,975,000
21 Russia 72 1,970,679 141,888,900
22 Germany 41 2,004,659 82,191,000
27 USA 110 2,772,291 304,952,000
34 China 100 13,257,120 1,325,712,000

Oh dear! China has 13 Million people per medal.

Population Per GOLD Medal

The same exercise has been done here with population per GOLD Medal. Again, I have included the top 5 nations who ranked dismally between 11 and 33 in the world.

GOLD Population Per Country
Rank Medals GOLD Medal Population
1 Jamaica 6 452,333 2,714,000
2 Mongolia 2 1,314,500 2,629,000
3 New Zealand 3 1,424,000 4,275,000
4 Georgia 3 1,465,000 4,395,000
5 Australia 14 1,528,165 21,394,309
11 United Kingdom 19 3,209,211 60,975,000
16 Germany 16 5,136,938 82,191,000
19 Russia 23 6,169,083 141,888,900
24 USA 36 8,470,889 304,952,000
33 China 51 25,994,353 1,325,712,000

and the winner is… Jamaica. Gee Wiz! I wonder how they would have been without Usain Bolt and his 3 Gold Medals. It was great to see the smaller nations get some glory.

So, if any of those big fellas brag to you, don’t forget they needed Millions of people just to produce ONE MEDAL. Now that’s funny!

Have a most outstanding day!

Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
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