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Log inmedals in rio per capita
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Idéfix
truthbetold
MaxEntropy_Man
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MaxEntropy_Man- Posts : 14702
Join date : 2011-04-28
Re: medals in rio per capita
by truthbetold Thu Aug 18, 2016 10:22 pm
Medals vs population is not a useful practical measure. World's population is not sharing equal opportunity. Sports culture, facilities, technology, training opportunities, food, and money are among the important factors that contribute to success in competitive sports and athletics.
Comparison between US, Canada, UK and Germany makes sense as they have somewhat similar characteristics. Russia, China, Cuba, Hungary, Croatia and other East European nations have past socialist influences. Populations of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia may be large but percentage of people who have any chance of developing sporting skills is very small. When skill developing opportunities change, these populations will also produce better athletes.
Even in the sports arena: The economy, stupid.
Comparison between US, Canada, UK and Germany makes sense as they have somewhat similar characteristics. Russia, China, Cuba, Hungary, Croatia and other East European nations have past socialist influences. Populations of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia may be large but percentage of people who have any chance of developing sporting skills is very small. When skill developing opportunities change, these populations will also produce better athletes.
Even in the sports arena: The economy, stupid.
truthbetold- Posts : 6799
Join date : 2011-06-07
Re: medals in rio per capita
by MaxEntropy_Man Thu Aug 18, 2016 10:29 pm
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:http://www.medalspercapita.com/
The accomplishments in the Olympics of the Scandinavian nations, Austria, and Canada may be even greater when you account for the fact that these countries probably have an equal or greater medal haul in the Winter Olympics.
MaxEntropy_Man- Posts : 14702
Join date : 2011-04-28
Re: medals in rio per capita
by Idéfix Thu Aug 18, 2016 11:13 pm
It will be interesting to take this data and chart it against per capita income. A scatter plot may show these trends well.truthbetold wrote:Medals vs population is not a useful practical measure. World's population is not sharing equal opportunity. Sports culture, facilities, technology, training opportunities, food, and money are among the important factors that contribute to success in competitive sports and athletics.
Comparison between US, Canada, UK and Germany makes sense as they have somewhat similar characteristics. Russia, China, Cuba, Hungary, Croatia and other East European nations have past socialist influences. Populations of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia may be large but percentage of people who have any chance of developing sporting skills is very small. When skill developing opportunities change, these populations will also produce better athletes.
Even in the sports arena: The economy, stupid.
Idéfix- Posts : 8808
Join date : 2012-04-26
Location : Berkeley, CA
Re: medals in rio per capita
by MaxEntropy_Man Fri Aug 19, 2016 5:27 am
Yes I thought about it, but need to develop some criteria for inclusion. Should tiny nations be included?
MaxEntropy_Man- Posts : 14702
Join date : 2011-04-28
Re: medals in rio per capita
by Idéfix Fri Aug 19, 2016 3:19 pm
Here is the quick analysis. In the charts below, the horizontal axis per-capita GDP (PPP), from the CIA World Factbook. The vertical axis is the total medal count per million people from the website above as of a little while ago today. First, consider all nations except the really small ones (i.e. excluding nations with fewer than a million people):
This shows that there is no meaningful correlation between income and Olympic achievement.
Given that there is great variation in the populations of nations, I did this with two further subsets, one considering all countries with more than 10 million people, and one with all countries with more than 50 million people. First, the chart for all countries with populations greater than 10 million:
Any link between income and achievement is still rather tenuous.
Finally, including only "large" countries: those with populations of 50 million or more:
In this group, there is more of a trendline, but the correlation is faint at best. The two outliers on the overachievement side are the UK with almost a medal per million people, and Ethiopia which has the lowest income of all countries in the chart, but an Olympic achievement level that exceeds countries with ten times its income. The richest country on the chart is the United States, and it significantly underperforms the trendline. The following countries have very low Olympic achievement: India, Mexico, the Philippines and Indonesia. The richest of the four, Mexico, has a per-capita GDP of $17,500 and it achieved just 0.01 medals per million people.
This shows that there is no meaningful correlation between income and Olympic achievement.
Given that there is great variation in the populations of nations, I did this with two further subsets, one considering all countries with more than 10 million people, and one with all countries with more than 50 million people. First, the chart for all countries with populations greater than 10 million:
Any link between income and achievement is still rather tenuous.
Finally, including only "large" countries: those with populations of 50 million or more:
In this group, there is more of a trendline, but the correlation is faint at best. The two outliers on the overachievement side are the UK with almost a medal per million people, and Ethiopia which has the lowest income of all countries in the chart, but an Olympic achievement level that exceeds countries with ten times its income. The richest country on the chart is the United States, and it significantly underperforms the trendline. The following countries have very low Olympic achievement: India, Mexico, the Philippines and Indonesia. The richest of the four, Mexico, has a per-capita GDP of $17,500 and it achieved just 0.01 medals per million people.
Idéfix- Posts : 8808
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Location : Berkeley, CA
Re: medals in rio per capita
by Propagandhi711 Fri Aug 19, 2016 5:06 pm
hahahaha....how many management consultants do we have here?
Propagandhi711- Posts : 6941
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Re: medals in rio per capita
by Vakavaka Pakapaka Fri Aug 19, 2016 6:43 pm
You mean..... the obsession with different treatments of "data" for reaching a conclusion that somewhat satisfies them?Propagandhi711 wrote:hahahaha....how many management consultants do we have here?
Vakavaka Pakapaka- Posts : 7611
Join date : 2012-08-24
Re: medals in rio per capita
by silvermani Fri Aug 19, 2016 7:21 pm
I HATE statistics. One time in college we had a super tough question paper in the stats exam. Some people realized the futility of trying to answer it and just walked off within 15-20 minutes, planning to write the supplementary exam. I figured I had 2.5 hours of time and nothing to lose, so I just plodded on and filled the answer sheets with what I thought were plausible answers. I thought I would fail too, but I didn't! That was a great escape. Looking at Carv's stats posts reminds me of that examVakavaka Pakapaka wrote:You mean..... the obsession with different treatments of "data" for reaching a conclusion that somewhat satisfies them?Propagandhi711 wrote:hahahaha....how many management consultants do we have here?
silvermani- Posts : 1631
Join date : 2014-01-18
Re: medals in rio per capita
by truthbetold Fri Aug 19, 2016 7:41 pm
Top 25 medal winning countries are all developed countries or former socialist countries.
Then there is a group of countries that win upto 10 medals. This group is mixed where it includes few OECD and former socialist countries. It also includes countries like Kenya or Jamaica who are good in one or two types of sports.
A third group is of countries that either do not win or rarely win medals. It is made up of mostly low income, and high density populations. India and Pakistan are good examples.
Saudi Arabia is a high income but low human development country. They are very small number of such resource rich countries.
A good predictor for medals may be a combination of size of population and human development index.
India is not likely to do well in sports for few more decades except an occasional flashy performance.
Then there is a group of countries that win upto 10 medals. This group is mixed where it includes few OECD and former socialist countries. It also includes countries like Kenya or Jamaica who are good in one or two types of sports.
A third group is of countries that either do not win or rarely win medals. It is made up of mostly low income, and high density populations. India and Pakistan are good examples.
Saudi Arabia is a high income but low human development country. They are very small number of such resource rich countries.
A good predictor for medals may be a combination of size of population and human development index.
India is not likely to do well in sports for few more decades except an occasional flashy performance.
truthbetold- Posts : 6799
Join date : 2011-06-07
Re: medals in rio per capita
by MaxEntropy_Man Sun Aug 21, 2016 11:53 am
might be interesting to look at only the countries that have won zero, one, or two medals and their per capita GDP. there is probably a decent correlation between winning pitifully few medals or none and poverty.
MaxEntropy_Man- Posts : 14702
Join date : 2011-04-28
Re: medals in rio per capita
by truthbetold Sun Aug 21, 2016 1:01 pm
data analysis is not a blind analysis basis on predefined blocks of data used for other purposes. You need to look at data and look at data from various angles to identify the underlying factors for a result.
This so called idea about India has no sporting culture vs Hungary is some kind of sports delight is meaningless. Sports is meaningless to 80% of Indian population while 80% of US population has access to some kind of sporting activity.
If the criticism is that Indians going to IITs are nerds and do not care about sports, it makes sense. But do not talk about the sporting culture of a billion people of India because they do not have a choice.
This so called idea about India has no sporting culture vs Hungary is some kind of sports delight is meaningless. Sports is meaningless to 80% of Indian population while 80% of US population has access to some kind of sporting activity.
If the criticism is that Indians going to IITs are nerds and do not care about sports, it makes sense. But do not talk about the sporting culture of a billion people of India because they do not have a choice.
truthbetold- Posts : 6799
Join date : 2011-06-07
Re: medals in rio per capita
by Seva Lamberdar Sun Aug 21, 2016 1:51 pm
Idéfix wrote:Here is the quick analysis. In the charts below, the horizontal axis per-capita GDP (PPP), from the CIA World Factbook. The vertical axis is the total medal count per million people from the website above as of a little while ago today. First, consider all nations except the really small ones (i.e. excluding nations with fewer than a million people):
Why not look into if there is a strong co-relation between the amount of money a nation spends on sports per capita basis and the number of medals won by its athletes?
Seva Lamberdar- Posts : 6594
Join date : 2012-11-29 -
Re: medals in rio per capita
by Idéfix Sun Aug 21, 2016 2:12 pm
This is a good idea, but I don't know of any reliable sources of data for this.Seva Lamberdar wrote:Idéfix wrote:Here is the quick analysis. In the charts below, the horizontal axis per-capita GDP (PPP), from the CIA World Factbook. The vertical axis is the total medal count per million people from the website above as of a little while ago today. First, consider all nations except the really small ones (i.e. excluding nations with fewer than a million people):
Why not look into if there is a strong co-relation between the amount of money a nation spends on sports per capita basis and the number of medals won by its athletes?
Idéfix- Posts : 8808
Join date : 2012-04-26
Location : Berkeley, CA
Re: medals in rio per capita
by Seva Lamberdar Mon Aug 22, 2016 8:15 am
Every country probably has some money (even as percentage-wise of the total budget) allocated for sports and such info. might be available from the Internet. You don't need the exact amount spent on sports by each country but just an approximate / ballpark figure. Using such amounts from the Internet (in U.S. dollars instead of local currencies) you can find the appx. per capita expenditure for each nation.Idéfix wrote:This is a good idea, but I don't know of any reliable sources of data for this.Seva Lamberdar wrote:Idéfix wrote:Here is the quick analysis. In the charts below, the horizontal axis per-capita GDP (PPP), from the CIA World Factbook. The vertical axis is the total medal count per million people from the website above as of a little while ago today. First, consider all nations except the really small ones (i.e. excluding nations with fewer than a million people):
Why not look into if there is a strong co-relation between the amount of money a nation spends on sports per capita basis and the number of medals won by its athletes?
Seva Lamberdar- Posts : 6594
Join date : 2012-11-29 -
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