Paralympic Medal table by GDP and Population

The Olympics are over, long live the Olympics! I was interested to see that the medal table for the Paralympics. Ranking by total medals, China was at the top, then Russia then Great Britain and then The United States. Well done all of them. I have to admit that the Paralympics have made me view the “disabled” in a different light. These guys are far more energetic and determined than I will ever be. Indeed, the ubiquitous overexcitement fist waving and overzealous exhalations of victory by the disabled has liberated me to dislike disabled sportsman as much as I dislike any other sports bores.

I have to admit I was surprised to see China at the top as, though I knew they’d made a big effort, I hadn’t realised that they’d made a big Paralympic effort. Russia too. Looking down the medal table got me thinking. Always dangerous……

Plucky little Cuba and New Zealand down there with 17 medals. Good for them. Not as great an achievement as China or Russia but……..hang on…..New Zealand and Cuba have miniscule populations compared with China and their economies are not nearly as great.

Obviously rich countries will do better as they have the lolly to throw at the games. The real test is not how much money you have but what you make of it. I collected some data and created a table which lists countries and their medal totals. I added a column for the country’s Gross Domestic Product which, for those uninterested in economics, is a measure of a country’s wealth. I added another column for a country’s population. I then added extra columns for “ratios” which I calculated by dividing the country’s total medals by it’s GDP or population and then multiplying by a fudge factor to get the numbers into a readable format. (ie. Not so small that they are lots of leading zeros).

More specifically the Population Ratio is the total medals divided by population and multiplied by 10,000,000. The GDP Ratio is the total medals divided by GDP and multiplied by 100,000. I then added extra columns showing ranking by Population Ratio or GDP Ratio.

I should say that I had “issues” obtaining information for all countries. China seems to score Hong King separately, Britain has it’s usual schizophrenia about whether it is The UK or Great Britain and “the former” Yugoslavia seems in a constant state of flux. However, I cobbled the data from Wikipedia together the best I could (well, as quickly as possible) and made a few assumptions.

The results are quite revealing.

Cuba and New Zealand’s efforts are actually more impressive than China, Russia, Britain or the USA. New Zealand ranks 1st by Population Ratio and 11th by GDP ratio. Cuba ranks 5th by GDP Ratio and 13th by Population Ratio. Other notable items are that Fiji is 4th by GDP ratio, Ireland is 3rd by Population Ratio and Iceland 4th by Population Ratio.

And Britain? Well we didn’t do so bad after all. Britain is 1st by GDP ratio and 5th by Population Ratio. On the other hand, India’s performance was dismal. Bottom by total medals, by GDP ratio and by Population Ratio.

Country	Rank by Gold	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total	Rank by Total Medals	Population	Population Ratio	Rank by Pop Ratio	GDP (USD)	GDP Ratio	Rank by GDP ratio
Britain	3	34	43	43	120	2	45561989	26.34	5	137936	87	1
Ukraine	4	32	24	28	84	6	45561989	18.44	7	137936	60.9	2
Tunisia	14	9	5	5	19	19	10673800	17.8	8	44252	42.94	3
Fiji	52	1	0	0	1	62	876000	11.42	19	3052	32.77	4
Cuba	15	9	5	3	17	21	11247925	15.11	13	64220	26.47	5
Azerbaijan	27	4	5	3	12	30	9235100	12.99	15	51797	23.17	6
Kenya	40	2	2	2	6	41	38610097	1.55	54	32483	18.47	7
Belarus	25	5	2	3	10	35	9457500	10.57	23	54713	18.28	8
Namibia	47	1	1	0	2	54	2104900	9.5	27	11701	17.09	9
Serbia	39	2	3	0	5	45	7120666	7.02	34	37713	13.26	10
New Zealand	21	6	7	4	17	22	4440700	38.28	1	141406	12.02	11
Algeria	26	4	6	9	19	20	37100000	5.12	38	158650	11.98	12
Macedonia	52	1	0	0	1	63	2059794	4.85	40	9138	10.94	13
Hungary	38	2	6	6	14	26	9957731	14.06	14	128629	10.88	14
Iraq	59	0	2	1	3	49	33330000	0.9	62	28141	10.66	15
Latvia	47	1	1	0	2	55	2070371	9.66	26	24014	8.33	16
Croatia	58	0	2	3	5	46	4290612	11.65	18	60852	8.22	17
South Africa	18	8	12	9	29	14	50586757	5.73	37	363704	7.97	18
Iceland	52	1	0	0	1	64	320060	31.24	4	12574	7.95	19
Ireland	19	8	3	5	16	23	4588252	34.87	3	206600	7.74	20
Poland	9	14	13	9	36	12	38538447	9.34	28	469393	7.67	21
Jamaica	52	1	0	0	1	65	2709300	3.69	44	13428	7.45	22
Egypt	28	4	4	7	15	25	82502000	1.82	52	215272	6.97	23
Russia	2	36	38	28	102	3	143142000	7.13	33	1479823	6.89	24
Slovakia	41	2	1	3	6	42	5445324	11.02	22	87263	6.88	25
Australia	5	32	23	30	85	5	22719766	37.41	2	1271945	6.68	26
Nigeria	22	6	5	2	13	27	166629000	0.78	63	196410	6.62	27
Morocco	37	3	0	3	6	43	32660800	1.84	51	91542	6.55	28
Bulgaria	59	0	2	1	3	50	7364570	4.07	42	47702	6.29	29
Iran	11	10	7	7	24	17	1210193422	0.2	72	386670	6.21	30
Bosnia and Herzegovina	52	1	0	0	1	66	3868621	2.58	48	16837	5.94	31
Czech Republic	42	1	6	4	11	34	10507566	10.47	24	197674	5.56	32
Hong Kong	34	3	3	6	12	31	7103700	16.89	9	224459	5.35	33
Netherlands	10	10	10	19	39	11	16740554	23.3	6	779310	5	34
Cyprus	67	0	1	0	1	67	838897	11.92	17	22957	4.36	35
China	1	95	71	65	231	1	1347350000	1.71	53	5739358	4.02	36
Greece	44	1	3	8	12	32	10787690	11.12	20	301065	3.99	37
Ethiopia	67	0	1	0	1	68	84320987	0.12	73	26928	3.71	38
Israel	45	1	2	5	8	37	7900600	10.13	25	217445	3.68	39
Austria	30	4	3	6	13	28	8452835	15.38	12	379047	3.43	40
Spain	17	8	18	16	42	10	46163116	9.1	29	1407322	2.98	41
Republic of Korea	12	9	9	9	27	16	1210193422	0.22	71	1014369	2.66	42
Sweden	29	4	4	4	12	33	9514406	12.61	16	458725	2.62	43
Uzbekistan	67	0	1	0	1	69	29559100	0.34	70	39173	2.55	44
Finland	32	4	1	1	6	44	5418430	11.07	21	238731	2.51	45
Thailand	31	4	2	2	8	38	65479453	1.22	59	318850	2.51	46
Switzerland	33	3	6	4	13	29	7952600	16.35	10	527920	2.46	47
Angola	51	1	0	1	2	56	20609294	0.97	61	82470	2.43	48
Slovenia	67	0	1	0	1	70	2050189	4.88	39	46906	2.13	49
Brazil	7	21	14	8	43	9	193946886	2.22	49	2088966	2.06	50
Mexico	23	6	4	11	21	18	112336538	1.87	50	1032224	2.03	51
Sri Lanka	74	0	0	1	1	71	20277597	0.49	67	49549	2.02	52
Germany	8	18	26	22	66	7	81844000	8.06	32	3280334	2.01	53
Canada	20	7	15	9	31	13	34908900	8.88	31	1577040	1.97	54
Norway	35	3	2	3	8	39	5032600	15.9	11	413056	1.94	55
France	16	8	19	18	45	8	65350000	6.89	35	2559850	1.76	56
Denmark	50	1	0	4	5	47	5584758	8.95	30	309866	1.61	57
Belgium	36	3	1	3	7	40	10839905	6.46	36	469347	1.49	58
Italy	13	9	8	11	28	15	59464644	4.71	41	2051290	1.36	59
Turkey	43	1	5	4	10	36	74724269	1.34	55	734440	1.36	60
Argentina	62	0	1	4	5	48	40117096	1.25	58	370263	1.35	61
Portugal	63	0	1	2	3	51	10561614	2.84	47	228859	1.31	62
Romania	47	1	1	0	2	57	19042936	1.05	60	161629	1.24	63
United Arab Emirates	46	1	1	1	3	52	8264070	3.63	45	297648	1.01	64
Singapore	65	0	1	1	2	58	5183700	3.86	43	222699	0.9	65
Malaysia	65	0	1	1	2	59	29467000	0.68	65	237797	0.84	66
Colombia	61	0	2	0	2	60	46683000	0.43	68	288086	0.69	67
USA	6	31	29	38	98	4	314303000	3.12	46	14447100	0.68	68
Taiwan	63	0	1	2	3	53	22805547	1.32	56	466832	0.64	69
Venezuela	73	0	0	2	2	61	27150095	0.74	64	391307	0.51	70
Chile	52	1	0	0	1	72	17402630	0.57	66	203443	0.49	71
Japan	24	5	5	6	16	24	127570000	1.25	57	5458873	0.29	72
Saudi Arabia	67	0	1	0	1	73	27136977	0.37	69	434666	0.23	73
Indonesia	74	0	0	1	1	74	237424569	0.04	74	707448	0.14	74
India	67	0	1	0	1	75	1210193422	0.01	75	1722328	0.06	75