The USA is doing well in the medal count as well. I'm guessing the $25K a gold medal garners the winner from the Olympic Committee certainly isn't a disincentive, but pales in comparison to the Italian payout of $182,400. Regardless, the USA pours a lot of money into system that spits out medal winners. After seeing three Jamaicans qualify for the 200m finals last night, I had a couple of thoughts cross my mind other than "Cool!":
- What is a more fair way to determine medal harvesting? Medals per capita? Medals per GDP? and;
- How many athletes from around the world train in the USA - either as part of one of the collegiate track teams or as part of a club?
To answer the first set of questions, I found this cool site: www.medalspercapita.com. It lets you sort the medal count various ways, and has data back for all summer games back to 1896 Games in Athens.
I haven't yet found an answer to the second question, though I suspect the number is fairly high, especially with western hemisphere countries. Maybe somebody else knows?