2008 Summer Olympics: GDP Adjusted Performance Ranking
Beijing successfully hosted a memorable 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Medals won by nation placed China with the most golds (51) and the USA with the most medals (110). Those are impressive tallies but those are also large nations that enjoy an abundance of human and material resources. Which would be the most outstanding national performance if some way could be found to level the playing field between large and small nations? In other words, after an adjustment for national GDP, which nation could be said to have 'won' the 2008 Summer Olympics?
FlagAndMap looked into this question for the 2010 Commonwealth Games and for the 2011 Athletics World Championships and developed an algorithm that assessed the value of medals won, adjusted that value to account for national GDP and ranked the nations accordingly. It turns out that the GDP adjustment that creates the most level playing field is proportional to the square root of GDP. Merely dividing by GDP penalizes wealthy nations too severely (and dividing by population gives even less desirable results).
So which nation really 'won' in 2008? Our final GDP ranking is shown below and Jamaica comes top by a clear margin with Kenya and Zimbabwe taking second and third place respectively. In this ranking China lies 11th and the USA 15th. So do these results make sense? In fact we would expect small nations to 'win' on a level playing; firstly, there are more of them and secondly, random variations in the number of exceptional athletes are likely to have a greater impact than for large nations. In 2008 it was their love of sprinting and Usain Bolt in particular that deservedly placed Jamaica at the top of our GDP adjusted ranking. We think the USA or China will always find it tough to come top in such a ranking but that's part of what makes it fun!
Check out our 2012 Olympics GDP Adjusted Ranking to see how nations are performing in 2012.
2008 Summer Olympics: GDP Adjusted Ranking
| Rank | GDP | Medals | Medals Won | ||||||
| Rank | Nation | Pts | Factor | Value | G | S | B | ||
| 1 | Jamaica | 628 | 0.14 | 91 | 6 | 3 | 2 | ||
| 2 | Kenya | 389 | 0.26 | 100 | 6 | 4 | 4 | ||
| 3 | Zimbabwe | 349 | 0.08 | 27 | 1 | 3 | 0 | ||
| 4 | Mongolia | 324 | 0.10 | 34 | 2 | 2 | 0 | ||
| 5 | Cuba | 299 | 0.34 | 101 | 2 | 11 | 11 | ||
| 6 | Australia | 298 | 0.93 | 277 | 14 | 15 | 17 | ||
| 7 | Georgia | 283 | 0.15 | 42 | 3 | 0 | 3 | ||
| 8 | Russia | 262 | 1.68 | 439 | 23 | 21 | 29 | ||
| 9 | Belarus | 253 | 0.37 | 93 | 4 | 5 | 10 | ||
| 10 | Ukraine | 250 | 0.55 | 139 | 7 | 5 | 15 | ||
| 11 | China | 242 | 3.19 | 773 | 51 | 21 | 28 | ||
| 12 | Great Britain | 216 | 1.49 | 323 | 19 | 13 | 15 | ||
| 13 | Ethiopia | 194 | 0.29 | 57 | 4 | 1 | 2 | ||
| 14 | South Korea | 186 | 1.19 | 222 | 13 | 10 | 8 | ||
| 15 | USA | 182 | 3.82 | 694 | 36 | 38 | 36 | ||
| 16 | North Korea | 175 | 0.20 | 35 | 2 | 1 | 3 | ||
| 17 | Germany | 156 | 1.74 | 272 | 16 | 10 | 15 | ||
| 18 | New Zealand | 149 | 0.36 | 54 | 3 | 2 | 4 | ||
| 19 | Hungary | 144 | 0.45 | 65 | 3 | 5 | 2 | ||
| 20 | Netherlands | 140 | 0.84 | 117 | 7 | 5 | 4 | ||
| 21 | France | 135 | 1.48 | 200 | 7 | 16 | 18 | ||
| 22 | Slovakia | 133 | 0.36 | 48 | 3 | 2 | 1 | ||
| 23 | Kazakhstan | 131 | 0.44 | 58 | 2 | 4 | 7 | ||
| 24 | Norway | 120 | 0.53 | 63 | 3 | 5 | 1 | ||
| 25 | Italy | 117 | 1.38 | 161 | 8 | 9 | 10 | ||
| 26 | Slovenia | 109 | 0.24 | 26 | 1 | 2 | 2 | ||
| 27 | Romania | 107 | 0.55 | 59 | 4 | 1 | 3 | ||
| 28 | Estonia | 103 | 0.16 | 17 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 29 | Azerbaijan | 101 | 0.30 | 30 | 1 | 2 | 4 | ||
| 30 | Czech Rep. | 99 | 0.52 | 51 | 3 | 3 | 0 | ||
| 31 | Latvia | 99 | 0.19 | 19 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 32 | Spain | 95 | 1.22 | 116 | 5 | 10 | 3 | ||
| 33 | Uzbekistan | 95 | 0.29 | 28 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||
| 34 | Armenia | 92 | 0.13 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 6 | ||
| 35 | Denmark | 85 | 0.47 | 40 | 2 | 2 | 3 | ||
| 36 | Canada | 81 | 1.15 | 93 | 3 | 9 | 6 | ||
| 37 | Poland | 78 | 0.87 | 68 | 3 | 6 | 1 | ||
| 38 | Japan | 76 | 2.07 | 158 | 9 | 6 | 10 | ||
| 39 | Bahamas | 74 | 0.09 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 40 | Bulgaria | 71 | 0.32 | 23 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||
| 41 | Lithuania | 65 | 0.24 | 16 | 0 | 2 | 3 | ||
| 42 | Kyrgyzstan | 64 | 0.11 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 43 | Switzerland | 61 | 0.60 | 37 | 2 | 1 | 4 | ||
| 44 | Cameroon | 57 | 0.21 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 45 | Tajikistan | 57 | 0.12 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 46 | Dominican Rep. | 56 | 0.30 | 17 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 47 | Croatia | 55 | 0.29 | 16 | 0 | 2 | 3 | ||
| 48 | Trinidad&Tobago | 54 | 0.18 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 0 | ||
| 49 | Panama | 54 | 0.22 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 50 | Brazil | 49 | 1.48 | 72 | 3 | 4 | 8 | ||
| 51 | Iceland | 48 | 0.10 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 52 | Finland | 47 | 0.44 | 21 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||
| 53 | Thailand | 44 | 0.77 | 34 | 2 | 2 | 0 | ||
| 54 | Tunisia | 40 | 0.30 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 55 | Argentina | 40 | 0.80 | 32 | 2 | 0 | 4 | ||
| 56 | Sweden | 36 | 0.60 | 22 | 0 | 4 | 1 | ||
| 57 | Turkey | 36 | 1.06 | 38 | 1 | 4 | 3 | ||
| 58 | Portugal | 33 | 0.52 | 17 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 59 | Serbia | 31 | 0.29 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 2 | ||
| 60 | Belgium | 27 | 0.64 | 17 | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 61 | Togo | 26 | 0.08 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 62 | Greece | 25 | 0.56 | 14 | 0 | 2 | 2 | ||
| 63 | Indonesia | 23 | 1.02 | 23 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||
| 64 | Ireland | 21 | 0.42 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 2 | ||
| 65 | Mexico | 20 | 1.28 | 26 | 2 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 66 | Moldova | 19 | 0.10 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 67 | Morocco | 18 | 0.39 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 68 | Nigeria | 18 | 0.61 | 11 | 0 | 1 | 3 | ||
| 69 | Sudan | 16 | 0.31 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 70 | Austria | 16 | 0.58 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 2 | ||
| 71 | Mauritius | 15 | 0.13 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 72 | Iran | 15 | 0.92 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 73 | Ecuador | 15 | 0.34 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 74 | Algeria | 13 | 0.54 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 75 | Afghanistan | 11 | 0.18 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 76 | Colombia | 11 | 0.66 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 77 | Chile | 10 | 0.52 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 78 | Vietnam | 9 | 0.53 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 79 | Singapore | 9 | 0.54 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 80 | Taiwan | 9 | 0.94 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 4 | ||
| 81 | India | 8 | 2.05 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 2 | ||
| 82 | Malaysia | 8 | 0.65 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 83 | South Africa | 7 | 0.73 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 84 | Israel | 4 | 0.47 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 85 | Venezuela | 3 | 0.59 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||
| 86 | Egypt | 3 | 0.71 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||