2011 Athletics World Championships: GDP Adjusted Performance Ranking
The IAAF Athletics World Championships held this year in Daegu, South Korea provided yet another opportunity to enjoy and admire the dedication and prowess of the very best athletes from around the world as they competed on the global stage. We have not been disappointed - there have been some truly memorable individual performances rounded off by a thrilling new world record by the Jamaicans in the men's 4x100m relay. Not for the first time both Jamaica and Kenya achieved above average results for nations of their size. Nevertheless in the both the final medal table and the final placing table they finished behind very familiar bigger and richer nations. So once again this has prompted FlagAndMap to try and establish a way of evaluating performance that levels the playing field and gives every nation a chance to come out on top. It's not easy to come up with an elegant and objective methodology but we trust you'll enjoy what we've done even if it isn't exact science.
Our methodology in brief is to assign a value to each finals placing and use the results recorded on the official website to establish an aggregate number of results points for each nation. The official website gives 8 pts for gold, 7pts for silver and so on down to 1pt for eighth place but we think that undervalues winning and have weighted the higher places much more strongly. We then multiply each nation's results points by a factor that adjusts for GDP - countries with higher GDP have their points scaled back whereas countries with lower GDP receive a boost. It's a uniform algorithm designed to minimize the overall distribution of results but we won't bore you with the tedious details. Instead we'll get straight to the outcome (shown below) and see which nation really won!
Well you can see that in our table Kenya won the Championships and quite rightly so in our view. They have considerable strength in the distance running events and succeeded in securing 7 gold medals. Likewise Jamaica's national enthusiasm for sprinting translated into success on the track and they come second in our table. Russian athletes also competed strongly and although coming behind the more populous, higher GDP, USA in the regular medals table, we have them in third place in our adjusted ranking. Very small nations also achieve some distinction in our ranking, notably Grenada and St. Kitts and Nevis - Kim Collins still running well! We hope you enjoy seeing how your favorite nation performed according to our GDP adjusted ranking.
Athletics World Championships: GDP Adjusted Ranking
| Rank | GDP | Results | Results (Places Attained) | |||||||||||
| Position | Nation | Points | Factor | Points | G | S | B | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | ||
| 1 | Kenya | 1036 | 0.90 | 934 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 0 | ||
| 2 | Jamaica | 774 | 0.70 | 542 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | ||
| 3 | Russia | 492 | 2.17 | 1069 | 9 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 4 | ||
| 4 | United States | 412 | 3.48 | 1433 | 12 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 2 | ||
| 5 | Ethiopia | 249 | 0.96 | 240 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||
| 6 | Grenada | 232 | 0.32 | 75 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 7 | Germany | 181 | 2.33 | 422 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5 | ||
| 8 | GB & NI | 172 | 2.16 | 371 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 9 | St. Kitts & Nevis | 166 | 0.29 | 48 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 10 | Cuba | 164 | 1.03 | 169 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 11 | Ukraine | 98 | 1.32 | 129 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | ||
| 12 | Poland | 97 | 1.64 | 159 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | ||
| 13 | Botswana | 96 | 0.73 | 70 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 14 | South Africa | 95 | 1.51 | 144 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 15 | Australia | 92 | 1.72 | 158 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 16 | Belarus | 85 | 1.07 | 91 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 17 | China | 78 | 3.17 | 248 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 2 | ||
| 18 | Estonia | 76 | 0.71 | 54 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 19 | France | 73 | 2.15 | 158 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 20 | New Zealand | 67 | 1.04 | 70 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 21 | Trinidad & Tobago | 64 | 0.71 | 46 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 22 | Czech Rep. | 62 | 1.27 | 79 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | ||
| 23 | Bahamas | 59 | 0.55 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 24 | Morocco | 51 | 1.11 | 57 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 25 | Zimbabwe | 50 | 0.48 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 26 | Norway | 47 | 1.26 | 59 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 27 | Puerto Rico | 45 | 0.90 | 40 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 27 | Croatia | 43 | 0.94 | 40 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 29 | Sudan | 40 | 1.00 | 40 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 30 | Tunisia | 40 | 1.00 | 40 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 31 | Brazil | 37 | 2.16 | 79 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | ||
| 32 | Japan | 34 | 2.56 | 88 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 33 | Hungary | 34 | 1.17 | 40 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 33 | Kazakhstan | 34 | 1.18 | 40 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 35 | Colombia | 33 | 1.44 | 48 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 36 | Eritrea | 32 | 0.44 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 37 | Latvia | 32 | 0.76 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 37 | Slovenia | 31 | 0.87 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 39 | Belgium | 28 | 1.41 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 39 | Canada | 25 | 1.91 | 48 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 39 | Italy | 24 | 2.05 | 50 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||
| 39 | Antigua & Barbuda | 23 | 0.34 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 39 | Spain | 20 | 1.92 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 39 | Portugal | 18 | 1.25 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 45 | Dominican Rep. | 14 | 0.97 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 45 | Iran | 14 | 1.69 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 45 | Bahrain | 14 | 0.74 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 48 | Sweden | 12 | 1.37 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 49 | Greece | 11 | 1.34 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 49 | Nigeria | 11 | 1.39 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | ||
| 51 | Lithuania | 10 | 0.87 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | ||
| 51 | Turkey | 9 | 1.76 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | ||
| 51 | Serbia | 8 | 0.95 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 54 | US Virgin Is. | 8 | 0.36 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 55 | Bulgaria | 8 | 0.99 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 55 | Moldova | 7 | 0.58 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||
| 57 | Uganda | 6 | 0.81 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 58 | Romania | 6 | 1.26 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 58 | Netherlands | 5 | 1.61 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 60 | Qatar | 5 | 1.11 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 61 | Ireland | 4 | 1.15 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 61 | South Korea | 4 | 1.95 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 63 | Uzbekistan | 2 | 0.96 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 64 | Algeria | 2 | 1.26 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 64 | Venezuela | 1 | 1.36 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 64 | India | 1 | 2.52 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||