Olympics

glatt · 08-13-2016, 08:49 AM

The link is more about geopolitics and statistics than sports. In fact, it has almost nothing to do with sports.

In a country where every waking moment is spent looking for your next meal, you aren't going to have time to train for competition. So that country will produce no gold medalists. An athlete needs a support system in order to train. So they must live in a wealthy country or a country with a state sponsored Olympic program. Also, a larger country will have more people and more chances to have an elite athlete, but size alone doesn't make it happen. Look at India.

The US has the most medals, but based on our size and wealth, we should probably have more.

The link is just a list of the number of medals each country has, based on other factors like size and wealth. It's fascinating.

08-13-2016, 08:49 AM	#7
glatt ™ Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Arlington, VA Posts: 27,717	The link is more about geopolitics and statistics than sports. In fact, it has almost nothing to do with sports. In a country where every waking moment is spent looking for your next meal, you aren't going to have time to train for competition. So that country will produce no gold medalists. An athlete needs a support system in order to train. So they must live in a wealthy country or a country with a state sponsored Olympic program. Also, a larger country will have more people and more chances to have an elite athlete, but size alone doesn't make it happen. Look at India. The US has the most medals, but based on our size and wealth, we should probably have more. The link is just a list of the number of medals each country has, based on other factors like size and wealth. It's fascinating.

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