August 15, 2016

New Zealand at the top of the (per-capita) table

On a medals-per-capita basis, New Zealand now ranks at the top of the table with two gold medals and six  silver at the Rio Olympics, Statistics NZ said today.

With eight medals overall at the half way stage at Rio, New Zealand is the highest performing country, with the equivalent of 1.77 medals for every one million people.

Slovenia is second on 1.45 medals for every one million people. Hungary and Denmark are third and fourth respectively, with Fiji coming in fifth based on its one gold for the men’s rugby sevens win.

Capture

However, on a per-capita basis for gold medals alone, Fiji tops the table, with its one gold for a population of just under 900,000. On that basis, New Zealand’s two gold medals leave it in sixth place, with a population of more than 4.5 million.

During the weekend, Mahe Drysdale’s single sculls gold medal was the high point for the New Zealand team.

On Saturday, New Zealand won two silver medals, for shot-putter Valerie Adams and at the rowing where Genevieve Behrent and Rebecca Scown also picked up a medal in the pair.

See the SNZ data here: http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/population/estimates_and_projections/olympics-2016.aspx#tables

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Atakohu Middleton is an Auckland journalist with a keen interest in the way the media uses/abuses data. She happens to be married to a statistician. See all posts by Atakohu Middleton »

Comments

  • avatar
    steve curtis

    The comparison I prefer is for the number of athletes actually at the games. NZ 203 , USA 558. When looked at that way we can see more than 10% of USA athletes get a medal while under 4% for NZ.

    8 years ago

  • avatar
    Megan Pledger

    But NZ are in the team sports – two hockey and two sevens. So that’s roughly 50 people contesting for 4 available medals in the league table.

    8 years ago

    • avatar
      steve curtis

      US has team sports too.
      Hockey, volleyball, water polo, soccer, basketball

      8 years ago

      • avatar
        Megan Pledger

        But one swimmer can win 10 medals while it takes ~15 hockey players to win 1 medal. So, I still think comparing on Olympic team size is a bit misleading.

        To optimise our medal to team size ratio it would be advantageous to drop our team sports but that would be plainly silly.

        8 years ago

        • avatar
          steve curtis

          The only way to win a medal is by being an athlete at the olympics, so thats the correct measurement.
          1 person winning 10 medals is an extraordinary event so we can discount that being a problem.
          The way to correct for bias for team or individual sports is to look at the number in each category. For swimming from the team lists NZ has 9 people . The USA has 47. The USA swimming medals are 33 , NZ is zero.

          8 years ago

  • avatar
    Bill Eaton

    Since this is elite sport, medalspercapita.com also has option to show total medals per GDP. Currently:
    1. Grenada
    2. North Korea
    3. Fiji

    15. New Zealand

    56. United States

    8 years ago