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2010 Commonwealth Games GDP Adjusted Medals Ranking

The Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games has arrived. The Commonwealth Games is a multi-national sporting competition between athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. It is held every 4 years and this year 71 nations are represented. Of course, as in the Olympics, the more populous and affluent nations will be expected to win the majority of the medals. The question we ask is, given these disparities, is it possible to determine a 'winning nation' on anything like an equitable basis? We think it's at least worth a try, if only for fun, and here is our attempt.

First, we need to decide how to determine the value of medals won. The US practice is to rank performance based purely on the number of medals won so that 3 bronzes are worth more than 2 golds, whereas in the UK it is more common to rank first by number of golds so that no number of silvers would outrank a gold. We take a position in between where each medal is worth slightly more than double that of the one below. This is accomplished by counting 2pts for a bronze, 5pts for a silver and 12 pts for a gold to generate the 'medals value'.

In order to level the playing field between large and small nations our first thought was to divide this medals value by the national population. If you're interested in how that looks please see our Population Adjusted Ranking. In fact this tends to severely penalize a populous country like India as it competes against smaller but more affluent nations. Our second thought was to divide the medals value by GDP, which is effectively a combination of population and affluence. This was still found to overcompensate very small nations so we settled on an adjustment that uses a 'GDP Factor' which is proportional to the square root of GDP. This has been found to give quite pleasingly competitive results. Big movers on the final day were Malaysia and Singapore who move up to 8th and 9th spots. England just pipped India on the strength of many more silvers and bronzes even after the GDP adjustment but India did win more golds, which places them 2nd in many medal tables. In any case congratulations to India on some fine athletic performances and for hosting a very successful Commonwealth Games. [updated with post games disqualifications]

2010 Commonwealth Games: GDP Adjusted Ranking - Final Standings

Rank Pts GDP Medals Gold Silver Bronze
Position Nation (MV/GF) Factor Value (12pts) (5pts) (2pts)








1. Nauru 694 0.02 17 1 1 0
2. Samoa 491 0.08 38 3 0 1
3. Australia 399 3.16 1259 74 55 48
4. Kenya 378 0.57 217 12 11 9
5. England 196 4.26 834 37 60 45
6. India 189 3.52 663 38 27 36
7. New Zealand 182 1.09 198 6 22 8
8. Malaysia 159 1.38 220 12 10 13
9. Singapore 154 1.33 205 11 11 9
10. Nigeria 152 1.32 200 11 8 14
11. Cyprus 149 0.49 73 4 3 5
12. South Africa 129 1.69 219 12 11 10
13. Jamaica 128 0.36 46 2 4 1
14. Scotland 127 1.36 172 9 10 7
15. Canada 127 3.66 463 26 17 33
16. St. Vincent 95 0.13 12 1 0 0
17. Bahamas 92 0.27 25 1 1 4
18. Cayman Is. 80 0.15 12 1 0 0
19. Wales 77 1.03 79 2 7 10
20. N. Ireland 74 0.79 59 3 3 4
21. Tonga 72 0.06 4 0 0 2
22. Uganda 60 0.40 24 2 0 0
23. Seychelles 56 0.09 5 0 1 0
24. Trinidad 54 0.45 24 0 4 2
25. Botswana 53 0.34 18 1 0 3
26. Cameroon 38 0.47 18 0 2 4
27. Guyana 35 0.14 5 0 1 0
28. Namibia 30 0.30 9 0 1 2
29. Sri Lanka 30 0.64 19 1 1 1
30. Ghana 28 0.39 11 0 1 3
31. Pakistan 26 1.29 33 2 1 2
32. Isle of Man 24 0.17 4 0 0 2
33. Saint Lucia 20 0.28 2 0 0 1
34. Papua N.G. 18 0.28 5 0 1 0
35. Mauritius 14 0.29 4 0 0 2
36. Bangladesh 2 0.97 2 0 0 1