Bangladesh is an elite country in both cricket and kabaddi, but neither of those sports hold Olympic status.

November 28, 2011 8:54 AM

Lots of countries have never won an Olympic medal. And they aren't all micro-states, either.

Bonus: Olympic medals won by countries that no longer exist.

posted by Chrysostom (32 comments total)

"Number of games attended" is a terrible metric. What about "number of athletes sent"?
posted by DU at 9:01 AM on November 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

Interesting that Bolivia has never won a medal.
posted by xorry at 9:17 AM on November 28, 2011

Too bad golf doesn't return to the Olympics until 2016 when Vijay Singh is past his prime, or he would have easily knocked Fiji's name off that list.
posted by fairmettle at 9:18 AM on November 28, 2011

As much as I think the Olympics are/have become a bit of a boondoggle, I have a lot of respect for anyone (individual or national team) who can't get on the podium and, rather than reacting with sour grapes, keeps giving it a shot.

It's pretty much the inverse of those sports fans who suddenly develop an interest in a sport they've never paid attention to because their nation/town/team is suddenly competitive.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:18 AM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Man, web sites that repurpose the back keystroke (alt+left arrow) for their own shortcuts are annoying. However, this web site has lots of cool stuff on it, so it kind of evens out.
posted by koeselitz at 9:21 AM on November 28, 2011

Wow, I had no idea there were juried art competitions at the Olympics between 1912-1952.
posted by joinks at 9:22 AM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I thought I wanted to navigate back from that page, but thankfully the page knew better than I did.

Seriously, though, get Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world. It's ridiculous that it isn't presented at the Olympics (even if I don't understand the game even a little bit.)
posted by Navelgazer at 9:23 AM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Paging East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94
posted by Polyhymnia at 9:29 AM on November 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

Interesting that Andorra and Cyprus have attended more winter games than summer. Cuba has never participated in a winter games. Could you imagine a Cuban bobsledding team?

He links to his source, DU, you can look at those numbers if you wanted to; number of participants is included. All the countries with no medal counts have relatively few participants.
posted by Barry B. Palindromer at 9:35 AM on November 28, 2011

Interesting that some of the wealthy states didn't earn a medal. For example, I would have thought that Monaco, San Marino and Malta would have served as a "flag of convenience" to someone over the years, perhaps in some obscure sport like air rifle or sailing or something.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:35 AM on November 28, 2011

Interesting that Andorra and Cyprus have attended more winter games than summer.

Perhaps in Cyprus' case, but Andorra is basically a big ski resort, so it isn't at all surprising in its case.
posted by Skeptic at 9:39 AM on November 28, 2011

Seriously, though, get Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world. It's ridiculous that it isn't presented at the Olympics (even if I don't understand the game even a little bit.)

Traditionally, cricket matches take days to play, top level international matches take five days. There are newer variations that can be completed in a day, like the format that the Cricket World Cup uses, but I'm guessing length is a big part of the reason cricket never got traction as an Olympic sport in the first place. Now, the presence of a Cricket World Cup means that there's less reason to add it as an event, since it would be a lot like Olympic soccer, which just doesn't mean that much because of the World Cup.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:46 AM on November 28, 2011

Seriously, though, get Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world. It's ridiculous that it isn't presented at the Olympics (even if I don't understand the game even a little bit.)

The trouble is that Test cricket matches last up to five days. If they had an Olympic competition with several entrants, they would still be playing by the next Olympics...

There are now several forms of one-day cricket matches, but they're frowned on by purists.
posted by Skeptic at 9:50 AM on November 28, 2011

Seriously, though, get Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world. It's ridiculous that it isn't presented at the Olympics

Baseball is arguably the most popular sport in the U.S. and Japan, the world's No. 1 and No. 3 economic powers, so you'd think there'd be more than enough money pressure. But it wasn't granted official status until 1992, and then became the first sport voted out of the Olympics since 1936.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:04 AM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Andorra is basically a big ski resort

Not that big.
posted by theodolite at 10:09 AM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I remember several Olympics ago when that swimmer from Suriname won a medal. I got this mental image of a frantic sound guy in the control booth rifling through a spare box of tapes looking for the anthem to play: "Suriname! Suriname! Dammit, where's Suriname??"
posted by gimonca at 10:17 AM on November 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

Andorra is basically a big ski resort

Not that big.

Here's a ski resort that has 600 km in ski runs, which is enough to cross Andorra 20 times.
posted by Copronymus at 10:18 AM on November 28, 2011

And then you think about the Pac-10/12 conference (including athletes from ~50 countries), which got something like 89 medals and 29 gold medals in 2008 ...
posted by mrgrimm at 10:35 AM on November 28, 2011

Wow, I had no idea there were juried art competitions at the Olympics between 1912-1952.

Oh, there's more than a few discontinued events: Duelling pistols, live pistol shooting, 100m swim but only for sailors, the standing high-jump, croquet, cricket, Jeu de Paume, pelota, polo, tug-of-war, lacrosse, motor boating, rope climbing, club swinging and 56lb weight throwing were all olympic events at one time.
posted by mhoye at 10:37 AM on November 28, 2011

Rugby is coming back! As sevens, I think. That'll be nice. Chance for more medals for Southern Hemisphere countries.
posted by zomg at 10:44 AM on November 28, 2011

Here's a ski resort that has 600 km in ski runs, which is enough to cross Andorra 20 times.

Hey, Andorra has 300 km in ski runs, plus the not-insignificant après-ski advantage of tax-free booze.
posted by Skeptic at 10:47 AM on November 28, 2011

Man, there's curling and golf, but not archery or any of the fun track and field or swimming contests or shooting? Now that I know all the awesome stuff that used to be events, the Olympics are bullshit.

Also, if curling is an Olympic event, then billiards should be.
posted by cmoj at 11:00 AM on November 28, 2011

For example, I would have thought that Monaco, San Marino and Malta would have served as a "flag of convenience" to someone over the years, perhaps in some obscure sport like air rifle or sailing or something.

When tax avoidance becomes an official Olympic event, these countries will win Gold, Silver, and Bronze.
posted by three blind mice at 11:11 AM on November 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

So it seems from that link that duelling pistols was an Olympic sport. Duelling. Pistols. Sure, it wasn't a duel between athletes (that would be a bit hardcore), but still. The Olympics used to be awesome.
posted by ZsigE at 11:38 AM on November 28, 2011

So it seems from that link that duelling pistols was an Olympic sport.

The seconds collected the silver and the bronze.
posted by yoink at 11:48 AM on November 28, 2011 [2 favorites]

Bangladesh is an elite country in both cricket and kabaddi, but neither of those sports hold Olympic status.

Bangladesh is only an "elite" country in cricket because there are so very few countries where cricket is played at a serious level. Putting cricket back into the Olympic games wouldn't even get Bangladesh a bronze medal. They're currently ranked 9th out of the 9 nations than the ICC bothers to rank in test cricket.
posted by yoink at 11:51 AM on November 28, 2011

By the way, I wondered about "Kabaddi" so I Googled it. Here is Wikipedia's description of the rules:

Two teams, occupy opposite halves of a field and take turns sending a "raider" into the other half, in order to win points by tackling members of the opposing team; the raider then tries to return to his own half, holding his breath and chanting "kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi" during the whole raid.

That's pretty awesome.

Unfortunately, Bangladesh has so far failed to win a single Kabaddi World Cup (there have been four). India is the undefeated champion.
posted by yoink at 11:56 AM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Cricket was a part of the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris, but the match was so haphazardly organized, that neither of the competing teams realized that they were participating in the Olympics until much later. Also, there was exactly one match; the teams werent fully representative of individual nations, and the entire Games were held over a period of six months.

It was also the last time India won individual medals in athletics, although there is now some controversy as to whether the athlete in question, Norman Pritchard, represented India or Great Britain (or indeed, England). Pritchard, nevertheless, won two medals then (and again, we do not know if he himself knew he was participating in a sporting event called the Olympics), one for "Great Britain" and another for British India. The IAAF recognizes him as bring British, but the IOC considers him Indian, and officially assigns both of his medals to India. The reason is, perhaps, simple: the two medals in Paris represents 10% of India's overall haul in modern Olympic history.

India is very much on this list in spirit.
posted by the cydonian at 12:00 PM on November 28, 2011

Rugby is coming back! As sevens, I think. That'll be nice. Chance for more medals for Southern Hemisphere countries.

Rugby Sevens is in from 2016, yeah. Definitely a good chance for Fiji to pick up a first medal, as they've been world champions in Sevens many times, and have two silver and one bronze at the Commonwealth Games (which, let's face it, the number of teams who could win Olympic medals in rugby and aren't in the Commonwealth are France. And maybe Argentina).
posted by Infinite Jest at 12:18 PM on November 28, 2011

mhoye: " Oh, there's more than a few discontinued events: Duelling pistols, live pistol shooting, 100m swim but only for sailors, the standing high-jump, croquet, cricket, Jeu de Paume, pelota, polo, tug-of-war, lacrosse, motor boating, rope climbing, club swinging and 56lb weight throwing were all olympic events at one time."

So apparently competing in the Olympics at one time or another was more like a pulp spy novel and/or more like Battle of the Network Stars. I think the world is a lesser place for it.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:38 PM on November 28, 2011

So apparently competing in the Olympics at one time or another was more like a pulp spy novel

May I introduce you to the modern pentathlon, a sport that, on paper, sounds like 100 tons of pure awesome.

"As the events of the ancient pentathlon were modeled after the skills of the ideal soldier of that time, Coubertin created the contest to simulate the experience of a 19th century cavalry soldier behind enemy lines: he must ride an unfamiliar horse, fight with pistol and sword, swim, and run."

None other than George S. Patton (yes, that Patton) competed in the 1912 games. Where the other competitors used pissant .22 pistols, George showed up with an ivory-handled .38 revolver.

And he lost. But don't worry, he took out his frustrations on Pancho Villa's bodyguard and two, count 'em, two German armies.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:37 PM on November 28, 2011

Rugby sevens is going to be huge for the sport of rugby. Quite a few countries (Russia for example) only put government money into official olympic sports. Looking for prestige and the chance of an easy medal, they'll put lots of new money into 7s. Which can only be good for the full game.

It's also exciting, skilful, highly entertaining and incredibly aerobic. Watching all of the commonwealth games 7s in one day at docklands in 2006 was the best $25 I've ever spent on sport.
posted by wilful at 4:50 PM on November 28, 2011