With the Paris Olympics drawing to a close this weekend, it’s time to turn our attention to what matters most – the per capita Games. Anna Murray breaks it down.
When you’re not Team USA or the People’s Republic of China, you need to get creative when it comes to Olympic medal table bragging rights.
If you’re the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, for example, you might suggest that the European Union sits atop the medal table with 189 medals.
Suggesting that an economic and political union of 27 countries is topping the Olympics medal table is, of course, ridiculous.
But do you know what isn’t at all a ridiculous measure of Olympic achievement? The per capita medal table.
All about medals per million
Sure, the US and China might look very impressive atop the official Olympics medal table with their 30 and 29 golds, respectively, at the time of writing. But in New Zealand, we know they are actually massive losers.
When it comes to gold medals per capita, Team USA has just 0.09 gold medals per million people.
The People’s Republic of China fares even worse, given its overall population of around 1.4 billion – that works out to just 0.02 golds per million people.
New Zealand, on the other hand, has always done well at the per capita Olympics with our relatively small population. We’re sitting at a whopping 0.975 gold medals per million people with our five top-of-the-podium results so far.
Jumping on the per capita bandwagon
Our neighbours across the Tasman have been very vocal about the per capita Games this time around.
Australia doesn’t normally bother to participate in that chatter, given they are annoyingly good at so many sports and usually sit close to the top of the regular medals table.
Our friends in green and gold are currently sitting third on that medals table with 18 gold medals but, given Australia’s relatively slow start in accumulating those wins, their media has been claiming they are top when it comes to most golds per capita.
On closer inspection of those claims, however, the Australian media has been looking at the top 10 countries on the overall Olympic medal table – not all countries, including those with much smaller populations than Australia’s 26 million.
Ireland has also been crowing about its spot on the per capita medal table in 2024 based on its four gold medals. Its population is only slightly higher than New Zealand’s, which means it has a mighty 0.78 gold medals per million people.
But fair play to the Irish for jumping on the per capita bandwagon. To put their four golds from Paris into context, Ireland had previously won just 11 Olympic gold medals in total over the last 100 years.
The real per capita champs
But we all must bow down to the new queens of the per capita Olympics: Dominica and St Lucia.
Both of the tiny Caribbean nations won their first ever Olympic medals in Paris – both of them gold.
Julien Alfred’s win in the women’s 100-metre sprint means her home country of St Lucia has an impressive 5.56 golds per one million people. This is because St Lucia is home to just 180,000 permanent residents.
However, Thea LaFond also won Dominica’s first ever Olympic gold medal at these Games, claiming victory in the women’s triple jump. And with Dominica’s population of 73,000 (less than Palmerston North), that means it has 13.7 golds per million people.
At the other end of the scale, there are dozens of countries with no gold medals yet. They therefore all sit at zero gold medals per million people.
This includes the world’s most populous nation, India – but with cricket returning to the Olympics in 2028, they probably won’t be part of that inauspicious club next time.
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