When we hear about the number of Olympics medals each country wins, we usually hear the total. The top five or six countries are almost always the same: the U.S., U.K., Russia, Germany, France and China. When you think about the huge population and wealth of those countries, it makes sense that they would win the most medals.
But this leaves smaller countries who perform better than their relative size and wealth out of the spotlight. Think of Australia, a country of 25 million. Compare that to America's 328 million. You might expect the U.S. to win well over ten times more medals than Australia. But that's not what happens.
So a more accurate representation of a nation's Olympic performance might be to look at the expected total. The Financial Times has put together a system that looks at a country's past medal counts, population size, and its GDP. The results are further refined by sport, given that some countries nearly always outperform others (think of gymnastics or table tennis). Putting all these things together provides a less-prejudicial view of each country's Olympic performance.
The Times has posted a real-time chart with a country's expected medal total compared to the actual ongoing total, showing the number of medals over or under expectations.
Take a look at that chart now.
