Fairer medal tables

The BBC have an interesting article on the Olympics, providing several different medal tables based on a variety of factors. The “official” table is, I think, somewhat cock-eyed as related to the position of teams. The Americans, having to be the best at everything as they’re about the most insecure nation on Earth, have based their tables on number of medals won, regardless of the metal they’re made of.

Of course, this puts them top. But completely disregards the fact that it’s the same as saying that every team in the quarter finals of the World Cup is as good as the others. Which is, let’s face it, horse-****. Not that it’ll bother the screaming success-mongers on Fox and CNN who’ll bend any fact to make their country better than anyone else’s.

Of the ones the Beeb have produced, I prefer the one that’s similar to our football league tables – different “points” for each medal, and position based on the overall score. Yes, it means we drop a spot in the table (Russia overtakes us, or did when they worked out the figures) but I just think it’s fairer.

The ones based on population and GDP have some relevance, but overall are pretty meaningless. A poor country could spend a large proportion of its money on sports development, while a rich one could spend only a little. Likewise, you could have an enormous population but 99% could live in poverty thus making them unlikely to produce Olympic-standard athletes.