Discussion: Olympic medal outcomes

I'd be curious how people react to this?

In general, when my models are off, I wonder if they are mis-specified, have omitted variables, or have faulty data.

What does it mean that China has exceeded expectations by 17%+ the past two Olympics?

Perhaps we can use this error to back into true Chinese national income figures? Or should we just scratch our heads about this large deviation? Is something else afoot? Or just noise?

j-man, they seem to be currently exceeding prediction by 17 medals, not %. I don't see comparisons for the past two Games at the ft link.

Evaluating performance partway through the games is silly. Jamaican medal count changes significantly after sprints, Irish depends on boxing (and horses on steroids).

Since they take past performance into account, the conclusion would seem to be that the Chinese are improving.

There's also a host country bump that's well documented, too. That would explain China's over-achievement in 2008.

100% right. 4 medals for us and that will stay the same till the end of Olympics.
It seems that past performances is the most relavant factor in this equation.

And...
Is anywhere a table how much worth Olympic medal in each country?

Thanks ndobbs. I stand corrected--I misinterpreted that and didn't do the math. But, who sets up a table like than with no decimal points in the first two columns and then two digits to the right in the third, which is apparently a difference? And the FT, no less.

But, that exagerates the point if these are absolutes.

@socks--I would have thought so, and it seems to hold true for 2008, but not for the several games prior to 2008 that I just eyeballed on their table.

This isn't the article that I read a few weeks ago, but it basically says the same thing, and came up with a quick Google search.

China really cleaning up in race walking. Oh yeah.

Shows how average Canada is;-)

That horse was on sedatives, not steroids :-)

Here's my favorite Olumpic medal "issue" - 50% of GBR's medals come from 7% of the population - those that are educated in private schools. "one of the worst statistics in sports" say the BOA... Maybe its a little UK-focussed, but I think the issue might be more widespread

100% of the USA's medals come from 0.00018% of the population...

But what are the marginal probabilities? Those are what we care about.

100% of the medals come from people who are good at sport

100% of the medals come from people who are good at sports or rifle-shooting or sailing or baseball.

There is no baseball in the Olympics anymore so unless you're referring to a baseball playing dude who shoots boats...

...or dopes horses.

For olympic sports in, e.g. Canada, USA, similar countries, which do you think would be a better predictor of which 16-18 year olds are still trying to train at a high level 5 years later: physiological variables ( vo2, or related) or how much money their parents make?

I bet there's a correlation between parental income and success in sports, but with opposite effects in different sports. Some sports have big start-up costs (equestrian? figure skating?), limited access and expensive coaching, whereas other athletes succeed in sports because it was their ticket to break into a new socio-economic level. Be interested to hear from somebody who actually knows about this. ;-)

Any athlete must be prepared on: eating, sleeping, training and resting almost without freetime and hours behind computers. Almost all coaches and athletes are saying the same thing over and over again and nobody really speak about money. I understand that VIP people like to watch equestrian as it is nice nobel sport but what is the difference in olympic mentality between horses and F1? Can you do it again with the same horse?

Slovenia Leads Games in Medals Per Capita
I bet Jamaica will win this game. Nice to see article about Slovenia in NYT.

So, we need multiple models--the macro model from the FT and UDel to predict country outcomes, and a micro model with all sorts of stuff (family income, etc.) and a factor measuring extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation to predict individual outcomes.

Extrinsic vs. intrinsic factors aren't at odds, but perhaps athletes have them to different degree.

Extrinsic--"Mommy wants you to be a dressage star." "You must do this for the glory of the state."

Intrinsic--"I want to get a gold medal to get out of this backwater town." etc.

I've been keeping a spreadsheet of medals per capita (and GDP) for the past 3 Olympics (and usually have shared the results on AP).

Anyway, with Grenada's gold medal yesterday, they are going to win medals per capita, gold medals per capita, medals per GDP, and gold medals per GDP.

They already have better numbers than the top teams in 2008. Jamaica and the Bahamas might make it more interesting, though. Or any nation with less than 100,000 people or less than $800 million in GDP.

Jamaica would have to win almost 30 medals to top Grenada's rate of 1 medal per 105,000.

It's safe to say that Kirani James single handedly took care of medals per capita battle yesterday. http://www.medalspercapita.com/

Jamaicans would have to win 20 more medals to catch up with Granada.

I can think of at least 4 or 5 of the 20 in the next couple of days, but probably a few too many...

On the radio here this morning there was a story about Australia being out-golded by NZL.

However, the small sample size for Grenada means that we can't say much about them with statistical confidence.

If anyone is going to do it, it's the Bahamas. They had 3 medals in 2008, and 4 medals in 2012 would sneak them under Grenada.

Aus finally went ahead though, thanks to poor Victoria Pendleton. I'm very happy that George in the lab is now happier :)

The Brits are looking within and asking "why is the private school system producing more top athletes". Maybe it is all just a bunch of baloney statistics, but maybe there are some factors. Parental income, exposure to more opportunity, better teachers (at least better paid teachers), better coaching, better access to facilities, higher levels of competition (R. Murdoch's theory), better nutrition?

Better nutrition?? Here's an interesting table to cross reference the Olympic medal tabel - two of the top performing nations at the Olympics are also topping the obesity charts

Argh, this is making me mad and I can't find any of the bazillion articles I've already read this week about it. But a lot of our medals come from "posh sports," which need significant financial outlay to take part in - so in comes parental income.

Higher competition is bollocks, or at least it was when I was at school. Better facilities for sure. Better teachers - nah. Perhaps more time devoted to sporting excellence, not sure how things work these days.

Still, it just made it all the sweeter when we finally beat Bradford Grammar (The Girls division of the school the Brownlees went to) in our final year of playing netball together.

Reversed causality perhaps? The Olympic Games was built as a festival of amateur sports. Almost all amateur sports have their roots in the British private school system. If you invented something, chances are you and your offspring will have a certain advantage when it comes to practicing it.

Like GAA. The Irish are World Champs at that. Untouchable

...and our local papers are rabbiting on about our region placing 28th overall if it were a separate country. Still means I'm the unfit slob I've always been so what does it all matter. Should I be more excited about somebody with the same postcode (zip code) as me winning or somebody half a world away? Unless it's me actually doing it what can I take out of it? Can I claim some sort of reflected glory? I know a lot of you will find this negative but have a think about it. What are you trying to prove with all this stuff? Then again maybe I'm just bitter because Australia is not yet in the top ten nations, somewhere we fully expected to be!

I am pretty sure that Canada is setting some sort of record for the proportion of 3rd to 5th place finishes (lots) compared to silver and gold (only a handful) these Olympics

Geoff, we have a certain gold in the sailing already so that'll push us above the Netherlands and into the top ten (for now).

In answering your question though, just look at the supporters at any AFL football match and tell me the supporters do not think that their team winning means that they also win, despite having nothing to do with the outcome or performance.

Matthew - for 'almosts', have a look at Japan's tally (and Australia's prior to last night).

tRicky....I saw a great skit on a british(?) comedy show with two guys in the office on moday morning, one a football (soccer to us two) fan, the other not interested in sport at all and astonished by the fans use of the word "we". It brought this point home in an extremly funny (but oh so true) way.

PS - I know about the guys holding an unassailable lead in the sailing - they are the ones nearly in my post code, so it is unlikely I wouldn't know, but as it isn't official I didn't count them yet.

The Channel terrible coverage 9 commentators could have (and did) fooled me on Monday night when they announced quite excitedly that we'd (oops, sorry I mean Australia had) secured two gold medals!

Whilst I agree that the "we won" view of supporters is a bit silly, I think it has a real benefit in getting kids interested in sports.

Shane...agree and disagree on that.

Maybe it provides good role models and something to strive for, but I think it would be more beneficial for any kids to have parents that were providing that guidance by participating in sports themselves. Besides, I hate the stuff spruked by many champions when they basically say you can achieve anything if you try hard enough. What BS. That might be the case for them and their physiology (am I using the correct term), but for the likes of a less than average mortal like myself it could never have been and should I have listened to them, (instead of realising the harsh reality at a young age) then I'm afraid I'd have been a lot more disappointed than I turned out to be.

Are we getting further off topic? I'd better stop now.

Leepback maybe your physiology could be perfectly matched to an Olympic sport, and were you still in your early teens (or even younger) and living in China (to name just one) you could be talent id'd and streamed into that sport.

"We won" by my standard mean that you are proud of achivements of your home athletes even if you don't know him, don't have nothing to do with the sport and don't get nothing back of his success. People feel good when someone do good work and sports is good to motivate people also on other areas. To be part of the community and not just an individual. So if "we won" don't inspire you, you probably don't like sport at all or you prefer cultural or other achivements more than sports achivements. I doubt that you live without any "we won".

Samo - I am part of a community and consider myself a contributer! I am an orienteer and do enjoy playing other sports even though I am absolute rubbish at most (many people avoid what they are hopless at, I at least have a go). I do get pleasure in Australia winning but I question why. Why should I be upset if a Slovak ?(is it Slovenian?) beats an Aussie? You are correct in that I probably would be, but I shouldn't especially as I'm unlikely to know either individual. Why was I upset that Cadel Evans couldn't successfully defend his TDF title? Some of the smarter guys and gals on here could probably explain why we nearly all have this inbuilt in our system and why it was needed. Maybe it harks back to earlier times and being delighted when our tribe defeats the invading tribe. I used to follow our local football team but started to question why. I ceased watching on TV. Can't say I miss it, neither the joy of them winning or the depair of them losing (which was more often the case). So you see you are both wrong because I do like sports, but I generally prefer to be participating rather than watching....and right as I don't mind a few cultural activities thrown in as well and still have some of that "we won" mentality that I'm trying to supress (at least until Australia hits the top ten).

Geoff - Don't get me wrong but I can say that many here and including me understood "we won" as you wrote down. I also don't spectate (and I am not interested to do) just beceuse it is fun to watch sports. Spectating and to be proud when someone make good result it is not the same thing I suppose. I also admire some other foreign sportsmen as I respect and try to understand what they have had to do to be on top of the world. My intention was not to say that your opinion is wrong as I also don't see any big achievement in this if we (Slovenians) occasionally beat (Aussies) in medal per capita. It is just fun to see different models.

But you open more political view on whole debate and I like it and I will share my thoughts in your thread.

When an American does well, it doesn't mean much to me. It's even stranger when someone says "we won" and they're talking about the professional sports in this country, meaning that the team consisting of people from all sorts of places, who were hired by the sports company in a city near where I live, won. What does please me is when my friends succeed (e.g. in an international orienteering competition). Usually they are Americans (because I know more Americans), but I'm just as pleased when it's a friend of mine from another country.

No killing my buzz. 10km race was still the (second) most awesome event of the weekend, as far as I'm concerned. I can live vicariously through whichever athletes I want, no matter how innane or illogical the connection. Heck, I even cared about the outcome of Friday Night Lights, and those were artificial characters on a purely fictional TV show.

You can break these things down and now Yorkshire is ahead of Australia

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19153924

...and how is Québec doing?

All these alternative ranking methods don't matter anymore now that the US is leading in both total medals and in golds.