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Most Winning Country Medal

Based per capita rather than by total. At least 4 medals needed to qualify.
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At the closing celebration, one country is given a kind of "grand prize" of the Olympics, the award for most medals won per capita.

The idea that smaller countries can win against larger countries really has an appeal to it. The reason to have 4 medals at least is to keep it from being weird by having little countryetts like Tuvalu standing proud with their one bronze medal for goat milking or whatever.

Every winner from that country would stand shoulder to shoulder and receive the award for their country.

Might as well have a gold, silver and bronze while you're at it. Last Olympics awards would be:

Gold: Norway 26 / Silver: Slovenia 8 / Bronze: Austria 17

doctorremulac3, Aug 19 2016

stats http://www.medalspercapita.com/
I googled it [Loris, Aug 22 2016]

[link]






       I say let single medal countries win. It will happen sometimes, but not that often.
scad mientist, Aug 19 2016
  

       Yea, maybe. I was thinking one medal might be kind of a fluke though. If however, a country like Trinidad wins 4 medals, that's a scrappy little country that's got some talent in the sports department. Might get little countries to put more effort into their PE programs in school, something that's pretty important in my opinion.
doctorremulac3, Aug 20 2016
  

       I just wish I could watch it on regular tv without so much focus on the medals and high-profile personalities.
RayfordSteele, Aug 20 2016
  

       The medals themselves should be sized inversely according to the population of the country winning. Tuvalu's bronze would require a wagon to move it.
bungston, Aug 20 2016
  

       That, [bungston], is a manifestly brilliant idea. China would look ridiculous proudly waving a gold shirt-button.
MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 20 2016
  

       Shorter ribbon for smaller nations so the medals hang higher? So big countries would have the medals down around the naval area, the smallest would be more like a choker and then have graduation lengths in between. More medals per capita, the shorter the ribbon.   

       It's be pretty easy to do. I don't think the medalists would care about the length of the ribbon when they got back home, they'd have their medals in the trophy case with the ribbon all tucked away. It would only be apparent during the award ceremony.   

       So at the end of the games when everybody's having their final pictures taken, everybody gets their final ribbon of the appropriate length. So when the 4 gold medalists from Vatican City line up they can proudly sport their 4 medals with very short ribbons.
doctorremulac3, Aug 20 2016
  

       Most medals per capita, excluding those with <4 medals (Grenada, Bahamas) : Jamaica.   

       The score table looks like this:   

       rank country medals ~ medals_per_capita
1 Grenada 1 ~ 106,825
2 Bahamas 2 ~ 194,009
3 Jamaica 11 ~ 247,812
4 New Zealand ~ 18 255,316
5 Denmark 15 ~ 378,400
...
19 Great Britain 67 ~ 972,212
...
42 Russian Federation 56 ~ 2,573,157
43 United States 121 ~ 2,656,353
...
86 India 2 ~ 655,525,263
  

       Gold medals only:
1 Bahamas 1 ~ 388,019
2 Jamaica 6 ~ 454,323
3 Croatia 5 ~ 844,880
4 Fiji 1 ~ 892,145
5 New Zealand 4 ~ 1,148,925
...
13 Great Britain 27 ~ 2,412,527
...
30 United States 46 ~ 6,987,365
31 Russian Federation 19 ~ 7,584,042
...
58 Indonesia 1 ~ 257,563,815
  

       The carribbean owns, basically.
No doubt Russia boasts about getting more trophies per capita than the decadant USA, and USA is proud of getting more gold medals per capita than Russia ("We're number 30! we're number 30!")
And Britain is shitter than it thinks.
Loris, Aug 22 2016
  

       See? I think that's interesting information.   

       I'd knock off the lower numbered ones though. For instance the real interesting one on the first list is Jamaica with 11. They only have a 25% bigger population than the Bahamas but wallop them in the medal department by almost 600%   

       I just don't think people would get excited about a country that won only 1 medal, no matter how small they are.   

       "Wow everybody! Let's all salute the greatest country in the Olympics this year! Grenada with their 1 bronze medal!" People just wouldn't take it seriously. Now Jamaica, New Zealand and Denmark, those are countries to be looked upon with awe.
doctorremulac3, Aug 22 2016
  

       I certainly agree it's interesting information.   

       //I'd knock off the lower numbered ones though. For instance the real interesting one on the first list is Jamaica with 11. They only have a 25% bigger population than the Bahamas but wallop them in the medal department by almost 600%//   

       No, those figures are per capita. How many people you have per medal won, effectively.   

       Jamaica have a population just over 7 times that of the Bahamas, but 'only' managed to get 6 times more gold medals.   

       You're right that if you're a small country it's easy to occasionally fluke the top of the table by getting a single medal. (Of course, they also often end up at the bottom of the table, with zero.) But to rule out small countries entirely is a bit unfair. Instead I suggest that you could average over several games worth of data. I believe it would be possible to develop a statistical model to only do this for the countries with small medal-counts.   

       For what it's worth, Bahamas and Grenada both had a gold medal in 2012, and Bahamas seems to have consistently been getting medals in previous games (including on average 1 gold since 2000).
Bahamas /definitely/ deserves to be at or near the top.
Loris, Aug 22 2016
  

       I say take the results on the day, and go with the flukes. If Grenada winds up as winner once, then good for Grenada. Wherever it is.
MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 22 2016
  

       //Jamaica have a population just over 7 times that of the Bahamas, but 'only' managed to get 6 times more gold medals.//   

       Oh, whoops. Gotcha.   

       Anyway, whether there's a minimum or not, I think this idea would get a foothold among those smaller countries. If I were Croatia I'd certainly be excited about showing the US who the greatest country in the world REALLY was.
doctorremulac3, Aug 22 2016
  

       Another interesting table might be medals per money spent on athletes, not that that data would be easy to come by or be good at squaring expensive vs. cheap sports. I'd bet the Jamaicans, Kenyans, and Ethiopians would be up near the top.
RayfordSteele, Aug 22 2016
  

       //New Zealand ... to be looked upon with awe//
In most things, also including sports prowess.
(Disclaimer: I might be a tiny bit biased...)
neutrinos_shadow, Aug 22 2016
  

       Quite so. Remind me which bit of Australia it's in?
MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 22 2016
  

       Oooh, them's fightin' words...
neutrinos_shadow, Aug 22 2016
  
      
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