Olympics Medal Ranking Algorithm

July 27, 2024 7:06 AM

OlympicsFilter: Better medal Rankings - Not by total, not by per capita.... "The Duncan-Parece model ranks countries according to how improbable their medal counts are if one assumes that all medal-winning nations have an equal propensity per capita for winning medals. Its measure of improbability is based on the so-called binomial distribution formula, which is the one you would use to calculate the likelihood of flipping heads, say, 10 times in a row. Applying their method to the Tokyo Olympics, the top 10 countries in order were Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Hungary, the United States, Italy, Japan, Cuba and Jamaica. In the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, their top 10 were Britain, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, France, Denmark, Azerbaijan, Jamaica, Germany and the Netherlands."

Here are the rankings of recent past Olympics. They will also be posting the Paris rankings beginning tonight.

posted by storybored (2 comments total)

San Marino won the population adjusted medal count at the 2021 Olympics, but their wrestling medal came from a wrestler who was born, lives and trains in the United States. Both the U.S. and Russia have more homegrown wrestlers competing for other countries this Olympics than competing for their national teams. That's partly due to deep talent, but also due to training opportunities and financing.

Seems in the spirit of the Olympics to assume each citizen in each country has the same odds of winning a medal, but I'd be interested in a PPP or GDP per capita adjusted ranking as well since money has such a huge impact on ability to train and compete. I'm not even sure how useful that would be, though. South Sudan, for example, is at the bottom of PPP per capita rankings and doesn't have any indoor basketball courts. So, in a sense, it'd be more impressive if their basketball team manages to medal. On the other hand, the entire team basically trains and plays with foreign clubs, so does national ability to finance training actually play a role here?
posted by Hume at 8:56 AM on July 27 [1 favorite]

Adjusted national rankings based on the geometric mean of national GDP and the medalist’s parents’ net worth, multiplied by an observer-determined factor that accounts for per-capita spending on public education, depending on whether you lean left or right.
posted by simra at 9:56 AM on July 27 [1 favorite]