It is no surprise that the host nation should top the medals table as the Olympic Games draw to a close, but the straightforward totalling up of golds, silvers and bronzes is not be the only way of looking at sporting success. In an effort to cut their southern neighbours down to size, a Canadian Globe and Mail has taken a different approach to working out who's done best at Atlanta. A very rich and populous country like the United States might be expected to do very well in absolute terms. Nor is it any great surprise that Russia, Germany and China stand second, third and fourth. These countries have huge reserves of population from which to draw their athletes. Purely on the law of averages, they are likely to produce more champions than less populous nations.
So what about relating the number of medals to population for a more comparable measure of success? The newspaper did just that, and found that, on this basis, Australia and Cuba emerge as champions, with one medal for every 591,000 and 729,000 of their population respectively. (Canada jumps up to ninth place.) The calculation served its bad neighbour purpose of puncturing the pride of the United States, which ranked only 14th with a medal for every 4,122,000 Americans. With its small population, Hong Kong might welcome such an alternative ranking. But, despite all the well-merited celebrations here over San San's success, we should hesitate. The Globe and Mail approach gives us a ranking only slightly better than Britain - and well behind the likes of Belarus and Ukraine. When it comes to figures, a single medal can only go so far.
