ANALYSIS OF ASR RANKING OF THE U.S.A. AND A FEW OTHER COUNTRIES THAT WON 1 OR MORE MEDALS IN THE 2000 OLYMPICS
By Alexander Makedon
10/04/00
Copyright © 2000
1. Analysis of ASR ranking of the United States:
The United States of America (USA) ranks 46th out of 80 countries that received a medal (gold, silver or bronze) on the ASR list. It has an ASR score of approximately 0.36. This means that the USA ranked in the lower one-half of medal-recipients, even if in absolute terms it won the largest number of medals of any other country (=97 medals in total). In other words, when countries are compared on the basis of medals earned per 1 million people, as they are on the ASR list, USA ranks in the lower one half, with only about 0.36 medals won per 1 million Americans. Based on that figure, the USA Olympic team won a full medal (gold, bronze or silver) for approximately every 3 million Americans. By contrast, Australia, which is fourth on the ASR list, has an ASR score of approximately 3.09, which is approximately 9 times as high as that of the USA. This is so because Australia won approximately nine times more medals per one million people in its population, than did the USA per 1 million Americans. Thus while only 0.36 medals were won by the USA for every million Americans, Australia won approximately 3 medals for every million Australians. Another way to say this is that in Australia, the population is nine times more "athletic," if by "athletic" we mean number of medals won (gold, silver or bronze) per 1 million people, than people in the USA. This shows a tremendous disparity between the appearance of athleticism given by the traditional way of ranking countries by the number of total medals won in the Olympics, and the reality of actually which countries enjoyed the highest "athletic success rate," or density of medals won per 1 million people in their populations.
One might become misled or draw the wrong conclusions regarding athleticism if he or she were to consult only total medals won, as in the lists published by the Olympics organizing committee, and replicated in newspapers and other media throughout the world. Based on those rankings, the USA might appear as the most "athletic" nation in the world, since it won the largest number of medals. More correctly, the ASR list shows that the USA comes nowhere near the athletic performance of those countries at the top of the ASR list, say the top 20, many of which have a rate several times that of the USA, and not just "slightly higher." In fact, the USA falls far short of having won enough medals per 1 million of its population to make it even in the upper half of the ASR ranking.
The ASR list seems to bear out several health warnings in the USA that Americans as a whole are not exercising enough, have become obese, maintain an unhealthy diet, and the like.
2. ASR Scores of other countries:
Other populous countries with more than 30 million people that earned more medals per 1 million people than the USA include Germany, France and Russia, all with approximately twice as many medals won per 1 million people. Other countries with populations over 30 million people that had a higher ASR score than the USA include Italy, South Korea, England, Ukraine, Canada, and Poland, with ASR scores ranging from Poland's minutely higher score, to Italy's 0.60, which is more than one and a half times as big as the USA's. Among less populous countries with more than 10 million people but less than 30 million, Cuba, Hungary, Belarus, Netherlands, Greece, Romania, Czech Republic, Belgium, and Kazakhstan all had higher ASR scores than the USA, ranging from just a slightly higher score (Kazakhstan's 0.42 per 1 million versus the USA's 0.36), to Cuba's 2.61 per 1 million, or over seven times more medals won by Cuba per 1 million Cubans, than medals won by the USA per 1 million Americans.
3. ASR number analysis
In order for the USA to have had the highest ASR score in the Olympics 2000 list, meaning, the largest number of medals won per 1 million Americans, it would have had to surpass the highest score held by the Bahamas, which is a relatively enormous 7.05. This means that given the size of its population, the USA should have had no fewer than 7 medals per 1 million Americans, as did the Bahamas, or a total of approximately 1911 medals, or more. This score presently seems unrealistic, since there just aren't enough medals from all of the Olympic sports combined to make that possible (there were a total of 928 medals given out in the 2000 Olympics). On the other hand, if the USA were to win in more sports it could "steal" several of the medals presently won by other countries, thus lowering their ASR scores, while raising its own. This is so because the total number of medals given remains constant, and therefore their distribution among different countries is like a zero sum game in which the distribution of medals requires that one country's medal-gain is by definition some other country's medal-loss. Nevertheless, sometimes smaller countries may have a relatively hugely successful Olympic team which would raise the stakes substantially for all countries on the ASR list, as for example did Bahamas with only 283,705 people but 2 medals (while by contrast India with over 1 billion people won only 1 medal). This means that really populous countries, such as, the USA, could at least aim for being among the top five or so nations on the ASR list by simply winning more medals, thus "beating" the competition by denying them additional medals, and therefore requiring a relatively lower ASR score than what seems presently to be required, to qualify as one of the top five scoring ASR countries (=number of medals per 1 million people). For example, to have a score similar to any of the other four countries in the top 5 scoring category, such as Australia's 3.09 ASR score, the USA would have to accumulate approximately 7 times as many medals, or 679, although as mentioned earlier, by the USA winning more medals, Australia and other populous countries that won many medals may have never gotten these many medals, in the first place, in which case they would not have had so high an ASR score, and therefore the USA may not have to have so high an ASR score as Australia had in the 2000 Olympics to qualify as one of the top 5 scoring countries. In any event, if the number of medals that the USA must win to become one of the most "athletic" countries in the world seems high (as the term "athletic" was earlier defined on the basis of ASR scores), it is because the USA is indeed one of the most populous countries, and therefore must earn correspondingly a larger number of medals to justify its being in top place. Otherwise, if it is considered number one simply because it won more medals than any other country, then it may be argued that we are unfairly "rewarding" USA merely for being populous by considering only total number of medals earned, as opposed to a more fair evaluation of number of medals earned per 1 million of the American population.
4. China, India
Another surprise that comes out of the ASR listing is the relatively very low standing on the ASR list of mainland China, whose total medal count of 59 gives it third place in traditional "total medals" listings, but in fact ranks very low on the ASR list (75th out of 80). This is so because of its enormous population (=largest in the world at 1,246,871,951 people), which equals to one fifth the total world population. Consequently, China would have to become a lot more competitive to raise its ASR standing, instead of relying merely on the appearance of being third simply on the basis of total medals earned. Interestingly in this regard, another country with over a billion people, India, won only 1 medal, which presents a particularly interesting case of a country with either very low levels of athleticism, or just lack of interest in participating in the Olympic Games.