Amongst the world's 60 largest countries by population, the usual and thus predictable Australian domination of the medals table (on a per capita basis) begins on Day One. Far from leading, China is bottom amongst the gold medal winners:
1. Australia (1/23) 0.043
2. Italy (2/61) 0.032
3. South Korea (1/49) 0.020
4. Russia (1/143) 0.007
5. Brazil (1/192) 0.005
6. USA (1/314) 0.003
7. China (4/1,347) 0.003
The parentheses show gold medals won divided by total populations. I've omitted the millions in the population denominator to avoid excessive zeroes.
The Alea Olympic medals table is designed to show which countries are performing best while excluding size-based dis/advantages. I have placed a cutoff at 60 countries as beneath that number, a special skill (in sprinting, say) can skew the result.
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