Maybe move to Lichtenstein and take up skiing?
August 5, 2024 10:33 AM Subscribe
Olympic medals per capita or GDP. Choose to view the data for one games or all of them, weighted or not, per capita or by GDP.
Also, just in case you were about to Google it:
Athletes from Liechtenstein have won a total of ten medals, all in alpine skiing. It is the only country to have won medals at the Winter, but not Summer Olympic Games. Liechtenstein has the most medals per capita of any country, with nearly one medal for every 3,600 inhabitants. Seven of its ten medals have been won by members of the same family: siblings Hanni and Andreas Wenzel, and Hanni's daughter Tina Weirather. Further, the brothers Willi and Paul Frommelt have won two of the other three; only Ursula Konzett has medaled for her country without being related to Wenzels or Frommelts.
Also, just in case you were about to Google it:
Athletes from Liechtenstein have won a total of ten medals, all in alpine skiing. It is the only country to have won medals at the Winter, but not Summer Olympic Games. Liechtenstein has the most medals per capita of any country, with nearly one medal for every 3,600 inhabitants. Seven of its ten medals have been won by members of the same family: siblings Hanni and Andreas Wenzel, and Hanni's daughter Tina Weirather. Further, the brothers Willi and Paul Frommelt have won two of the other three; only Ursula Konzett has medaled for her country without being related to Wenzels or Frommelts.
I had thought that the high rankings of Sweden, Norway, and Finland were probably from dominance in winter sport, but no, when you filter for just Summer, Finland and Sweden actually move *up*. Impressive!
posted by tavella at 10:58 AM on August 5 [2 favorites]
posted by tavella at 10:58 AM on August 5 [2 favorites]
Time for Vatican City to pour money into making just one citizen the best at something (or even just third best if they don't care about gold) and claiming the top spot here.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:18 AM on August 5 [2 favorites]
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:18 AM on August 5 [2 favorites]
Probably easiest if they found a Catholic athlete who was already really good at something and gave them citizenship.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:27 AM on August 5 [2 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 11:27 AM on August 5 [2 favorites]
Maybe move to Lichtenstein and take up skiing?
.. and marry a Wenzel or Frommelt, no?
posted by signal at 11:32 AM on August 5
.. and marry a Wenzel or Frommelt, no?
posted by signal at 11:32 AM on August 5
Hmm, Medals Wenzel is an outlier and shouldn’t have been counted.
(Counterpoint: every Olympian, medalist or otherwise, is a statistical outlier of some sort).
posted by nat at 12:03 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
(Counterpoint: every Olympian, medalist or otherwise, is a statistical outlier of some sort).
posted by nat at 12:03 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
Every country is the Liechtenstein of some sport.
Until recently the USA was the Liechtenstein of cricket. Then some Indian expats noticed.
And India is a Liechtenstein for just about any sport besides cricket..
posted by ocschwar at 12:14 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
Until recently the USA was the Liechtenstein of cricket. Then some Indian expats noticed.
And India is a Liechtenstein for just about any sport besides cricket..
posted by ocschwar at 12:14 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
Time for Vatican City to pour money into making just one citizen the best at something
They gotta do it while wearing the Swiss Guard uniform, though.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 1:32 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
They gotta do it while wearing the Swiss Guard uniform, though.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 1:32 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
The missing dimension here seems to be time. The Soviet Union stopped winning anything in 1991, but it still ranks ahead of Japan and Spain in total medals per capita. A better statistic would be medals per person-year. Expressed in micromedals, of course.
posted by drdanger at 2:26 PM on August 5 [4 favorites]
posted by drdanger at 2:26 PM on August 5 [4 favorites]
My favorite medal table is from the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics. How amazing it must have felt to be a member of the secure, prosperous, stable countries of the Soviet Union and East Germany, whose state capacity and national cohesion allowed them to secure the top two spots in a country so far away from their main population centers.
posted by sy at 2:36 PM on August 5 [4 favorites]
posted by sy at 2:36 PM on August 5 [4 favorites]
The population counts are a bit out of date. For example if you list gold medals per capita for Paris 2024, New Zealand is 3rd and Ireland 4th. But if you used their up-to-date population figures (5,269,939 and 5,089,478 respectively) they swap places. Edit: or maybe not depending on where you get the data. At any rate their populations are a lot higher than 4,822,233 and 4,937,786).
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 6:51 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 6:51 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]
Time for Vatican City to pour money into making just one citizen the best at something
They already have one! They just need to get Poping officially recognized by the IOC
posted by Jon Mitchell at 7:39 PM on August 5
They already have one! They just need to get Poping officially recognized by the IOC
posted by Jon Mitchell at 7:39 PM on August 5
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posted by jacquilynne at 10:49 AM on August 5