Abstract
Which nations were most ‘successful’, when accounting for their resources, at recent Olympic Games? It seems reasonable to assess this in terms of the number of medals won compared to how many nations are expected to win relative to their resources?. Data were collected for those countries competing in the Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympics. National statistics used were: population size, gross domestic product (GDP), the human development index (HDI) and Gini, a measure of inequality of wealth. Predictive models of medal success were generated using linear regression. Three were considered: population size, GDP and population size+HDI. Relative success was calculated as either the absolute or proportional difference in predicted versus actual medal success. The present study serves primarily to provide the ‘alternate’ medal tables derived from these calculations and incorporates concise discussion on the results to stimulate debate. These tables sometimes include nations towards the top that might not otherwise be considered to have had successful recent Olympics.
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