Unusual (and unrepresentative) distribution of medals across
events gives certain countries a huge advantage in Olympic medals tally.
WSJ’s Mathew Futterman asks:
“There are plenty of
folks who gripe about the prominence of swimming at the Olympics.
The sport accounts for
nearly 10% of the medals and it’s only pursued seriously in a handful of
countries. Do we really need 100- and 200-meter races of every stroke and even
200- and 400-meter individual medleys? Why not just have a 300, declare a
world’s greatest medley swimmer and be done with it?...
The Americans won 16
gold medals and 31 overall in the Olympic pool in London, roughly one-third of
their overall total.”
Many countries in the world (especially those from Africa
and much of Asia) do not even have sufficient access to drinking water. These
countries are unlikely to build a large enough number of modern 50-meter swimming pools
to support competitive swimmers. Not surprisingly, they are not even represented in most of the
swimming events.
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Countries that medal in a more diverse group of sports should
also be feted – it represents an impressive accomplishment even if they fall
well short of total US medal count.
The following site allows one to look at the various medals
won (and the sport in which medal was awarded) by individual countries at Rio
2016:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/ng-interactive/2016/aug/05/rio-olympics-2016-medal-table-and-results-in-full
One interesting comparison – US versus China (contrast the variety of sports in which athletes from the two sporting powers have medaled)
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Personal Pet Peeve -
Why the bloody hell is Dressage (Equestrian) an Olympic sport (or even a sport)?
One interesting comparison – US versus China (contrast the variety of sports in which athletes from the two sporting powers have medaled)
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Personal Pet Peeve -
Why the bloody hell is Dressage (Equestrian) an Olympic sport (or even a sport)?