If it weren't for those medaling kids...

July 31, 2012 8:32 AM

Here's a nifty realtime Olympic medal tracker that allows you to sort by rank, country, total, gold, silver, and bronze medals. Too obvious for you? There are plenty of alternatives: medals per capita ; medals by GDP per capita; number of athletes and billions of dollars GDP per medal (2008); and a discussion of alternative rankings with a sortable rankings table. There is also a booming business in predictions that take into account GDP per capita, population size, and other factors: FT; BBC.

A bit more on medals by population here.

Previously: The Australian Bureau of Statistics' alternative tallies for the 2004 games; Joel Stein's proposal for an alternative scoring system.

posted by googly (23 comments total)

The FT link (medals by GDP per capita) claims South Korea is an emerging market even as it acknowledges SK's high level of development. To which I say: zuh?
posted by psoas at 8:43 AM on July 31, 2012

Do You Sort of Not Really Care About the Olympics? Here's the Site for You
posted by infini at 9:05 AM on July 31, 2012

Do You Sort of Not Really Care About the Olympics?

Then Why Did You Click on this Link?
posted by yoink at 9:09 AM on July 31, 2012 [4 favorites]

I'm a little disappointed that I can't find anyone maintaining a DFL tally for the current games.
posted by ceribus peribus at 9:15 AM on July 31, 2012 [2 favorites]

Do You Sort of Not Really Care About the Olympics?

The Atlantic's writing is the ultimate distillation of the Sheltering Suburban Mom meme.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 9:21 AM on July 31, 2012

That medalcount.com site is awesome. Great find.
posted by zarq at 9:24 AM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Atlantic's writing is the ultimate distillation of the Sheltering Suburban Mom meme.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 11:21 on 7/31

Can you believe it's the same organ that covered the Civil War? I get in fights with their assistant editors on Twitter that always end with me shouting WHY DOES MEGAN MCARDLE HATE POOR PEOPLE SHE'S NEVER EVEN MET ANY.

/Derail
posted by samofidelis at 9:30 AM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

Can you believe it's the same organ that covered the Civil War?

The New York Times headline announcing Union victory
posted by Egg Shen at 9:38 AM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think I heard last time around that China carefully calculates which events to concentrate on to maximize their total gold medals. Unlike, presumably, other nations that just field the best athletes in their chosen events, total medals be damned? Was (is) any of that true or is it just propaganda?
posted by pracowity at 9:39 AM on July 31, 2012

I think I heard last time around that China carefully calculates which events to concentrate on to maximize their total gold medals... Was (is) any of that true

Yep.
posted by Egg Shen at 9:42 AM on July 31, 2012

I hope you foreign types appreciate how, with typical British sportsmanship and hospitality, we're letting you win all the medals.
posted by Decani at 9:57 AM on July 31, 2012 [3 favorites]

Verbing weirds language.
posted by scruss at 10:53 AM on July 31, 2012

Unlike, presumably, other nations that just field the best athletes in their chosen events, total medals be damned? Was (is) any of that true or is it just propaganda?

I don't know about other countries, but that's exactly how it works in the US (we have an advantage because we're quite wealthy, but I don't think we run any medal factories and our athletes receive next to no monetary support from our government).
posted by downing street memo at 10:56 AM on July 31, 2012

It would be push the US medal count higher but it would be very interesting to see a count based on where the athlete lives/trains/makes their money.

Heck, it would be fun to see a medal count based on the university attended since it seems (to me) that a heck of lot of non-US athletes attended college here (especially the swimmers/track folk)
posted by jaimystery at 11:15 AM on July 31, 2012

I hate country medal counts.
posted by caddis at 11:31 AM on July 31, 2012 [2 favorites]

Do You Sort of Not Really Care About the Olympics? Here's the Site for You

If you're tired of being half-assed and actively DISLIKE the Olympics, here's the browser add-on for you.

I scoffed at first, but it is rather enjoyable if you're trying to to ignore The Games™.
posted by mrgrimm at 2:19 PM on July 31, 2012

As Baron Pierre de Coubertin said, it's not the winning which counts, it's beating the French and Germans.

I hope you foreign types appreciate how, with typical British sportsmanship and hospitality, we're letting you win all the medals.

It's starting to get fun!!
With every further British failure my heart leaps with joy. I hope we get through the games goldless 'till Phillips Idowu jumps clean out the pit and shoves his medal up van Commenee's arse.
To all the "sport is big business", Britwatch, "have we got a gold yet?", medal counting bastards I wish you all die in a terrible Sir Clive Woodward visioneering accident.
posted by fullerine at 2:58 PM on July 31, 2012

I find the obsessive nationalist focus on medal counts ... distasteful? Winning 52 medals doesn't mean you won the "my country is better than yours" contest, and pretending it does seems to be missing the point of the entire exercise. I don't want the USA to win every event. The whole joy (sometimes the only joy) of watching the Olympics is seeing an athlete from a country which isn't "supposed" to win on the medal platform. Like a Slovenian winning a gold in women's judo, or a Tongan boxer taking a medal in 1996. I want to see medals for countries that will have that feat be the biggest damned story of the week in their national newspapers, not a damned statistical footnote.
posted by 1adam12 at 3:47 PM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

I want to see medals for countries that will have that feat be the biggest damned story of the week in their national newspapers, not a damned statistical footnote.
posted by infini at 4:17 PM on July 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

Bloody hell. Team GB is now 3rd in the medal table. That won't last once track and field starts.
posted by Decani at 4:25 PM on August 4, 2012

*Decani underestimates the power of Mo*

They cheered Seb Coe yesterday.
Cheered him.

We're through the looking glass now people.

In a few weeks the country is going to wake up and look across to a giant foam hand with "We're #1" on it. The chants of "Team GB Team GB" will echo through its head as it tries to silently slip out the door. Clad in nothing but a union jack it will trudge wearily home, wincing at memories of singing the anthem and smirking at that time when it laughed at Australia.

"Olympics? nah mate, didn't really follow them to be honest"
But we will know Oh God we will know.
posted by fullerine at 2:48 AM on August 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

The whole joy (sometimes the only joy) of watching the Olympics is seeing an athlete from a country which isn't "supposed" to win on the medal platform.
posted by 1adam12 at 11:47 PM on July 31

Well, you must be overjoyed for Team GB then!
posted by Decani at 11:08 AM on August 6, 2012

The New Olympic Arms Race:

Then there’s the way I watch the games: as a statistical survey of geopolitics and destructive public policy. Individuals matter, to a degree, but more as products of systems than as distinctive personalities. I admire Ye Shiwen’s performance but wonder more about why the country’s swimming coaches get paid almost as much as the central government spends on preserving the country’s dying folk culture. I think Phelps is a great physical specimen but wonder why Americans are getting fatter and fatter. And I look in bemusement at Great Britain’s sudden rise up the medals table—the telltale sign of a country with an inferiority complex that has decided to spend lots and lots of money on attention-getting elite sports: modern-day penis envy.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:51 AM on August 13, 2012