Per Capita National Olympic Performance

Standard Olympic medal standings neglect obvious comparative inequities. The most glaring of these are vast differences in national populations. Per capita, the US ranks only #35 in medal performance and China ranks only #53. China's 39 gold medals -- 21% of the Olympic total -- are impressive until you realize that China also has 20% of the world's population. Its 15% take of total medals is considerably less than its share of world population, even though it has all the advantages of being the home country (and may well have cheated).

The leading per-capita national showings are Jamaica at #1 and Australia at #3, far outperforming other medals leaders. The strongest regions are eastern Europe with Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Belarus and Hungary in the top 12; and Scandinavia, with three of the region's four countries (Finland, Denmark and Norway) in the top nine.

Rank		Country	Gold	Sil- ver	Bro- nze	Total medals	4-2-1 points		pop (mil)	Gold medals /mil	Total medals /million	421 points /million
1		Jamaica	2	2	0	4	12		3	.737	1.47	4.42
2		Slovenia	1	1	2	4	8		2	.493	1.97	3.94
3		Australia	11	10	12	33	76		21	.514	1.54	3.55
4		Azerbaijan	1	2	2	5	10		3	.333	1.67	3.33
5		Slovakia	3	1	0	4	14		5	.628	.84	2.93
6		Finland	1	1	1	3	7		3	.380	1.14	2.66
7		Denmark	2	1	3	6	13		5	.364	1.09	2.37
8		Canada	2	3	4	9	18		8	.262	1.18	2.36
9		Norway	1	2	2	5	10		4	.227	1.14	2.27
10		Romania	4	1	3	8	21		11	.355	.71	1.86

For the full list, go to Sport and Society