2014 Feb 24 category: Latest News author: mapster
Congratulations to all who took part in the Winter Olympics at Sochi and especially to those from the Russian Federation who pulled off a memorable national team performance. Indeed that nation can be said to have won, no matter how you look at the medals table. As to which nation came second, opinions may differ. We don’t, however, calculate a GDP adjusted ranking for the Winter Olympics as we do for the Summer Olympics because of the rather hard to measure ‘arctic’ or ‘alpine’ factor that impacts performance more than GDP. If a GDP adjustment were made, Norway would clearly be big winners, and they certainly benefit from the ‘arctic’ factor. So for the Winter Olympics we just sit back and enjoy our favorite events, like boardercross.
2012 Aug 13 category: World Affairs author: mapster
It’s been a magnificent 2 weeks of sport, efficiently organized, well supported and highly competitive. Congratulations to all those involved in the London 2012 Olympics. Regarding our modest effort to add to the fun, the final standings are now available in our 2012 Olympics GDP Adjusted Medals Table. Just as they did in 2008, Jamaica win by a comfortable margin. Grenada won just one medal, but it was gold and from such a low GDP base that’s enough to place them second. In third place, with a remarkable host nation effort, are Great Britain. Russia should probably beat Great Britain on raw medals value but they have a higher GDP and so take fourth place in our ranking. Meanwhile the two great rivals for supremacy in the standard table, China and the USA, lie 14th and 15th respectively, with China outdoing the USA by just two ranking points. In other rivalries congratulations go to New Zealand for beating Australia, Germany for beating France and North Korea for beating South Korea. Check out the complete ranking to see how your nation fared. It’s been fun and we look foward to trying to level the playing field yet again for the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow.
2012 Aug 09 category: World Affairs author: mapster
We’re approaching the finishing line of the London 2012 Olympics and the race for top spot in our 2012 Olympics GDP Adjusted Medals Ranking is going down to the wire. A single gold by the small nation of Grenada was sufficient to propel them into first place yesterday but today they have been overtaken by Jamaica with 3 golds, 3 silvers and 3 bronzes. Jamaica came top of the 2008 Olympics GDP Adjusted Ranking and it looks like they will be tough to beat this time too. Meanwhile, there are gripping contests lower down the ranking as well. Hungary moves into 3rd place with a very creditable 15 medals, of which 8 are gold. The hosts, Great Britain, hang on to 4th place, while other large nations are finally starting to move up – China 6th, Russia 7th and the USA 9th.
2012 Aug 05 category: World Affairs author: mapster
There’s been lots of movement in recent days in our 2012 Olympics GDP Adjusted Performance Ranking with Great Britain finally demonstrating host nation advantage, reaching second place in the rankings by the end of yesterday. North Korea however, in top spot from the first day courtesy of 3 weightlifting golds, has been hard to dislodge owing to their very low GDP. Today however, another contender emerged as Jamaica sprinted up the table to snatch second place. Kazakhstan, currently in 4th place, continue to perform well with the remarkable distinction that all of the 6 medals they have won have been gold! While little separates China and the USA as they contend to head the traditional medals table, it will be hard for the latter to surpass the former if adjustment is made for GDP (they lie 5th and 9th respectively in our adjusted ranking).
2012 Aug 01 category: World Affairs author: mapster
North Korea seems to have taken an unassailable lead in our 2012 Olympics GDP Adjusted Performance Ranking. Their haul of 4 golds and 1 bronze is punching well above their GDP weight, which is perhaps a consequence of their alternative economic model. Meanwhile the race for second place is much tighter with Kazakhstan, Georgia and China all with 81 ranking points. Great Britain picked up a nice cluster of medals today but it merely served to move them up from 27th to 20th. We might expect the host nation to do rather better on a level playing field but it is early days yet.
2012 Jul 28 category: World Affairs author: mapster
The 2012 Summer Olympic Games being held in London are finally upon us. After a unique and entertaining opening ceremony the athletes now get the chance to reap the reward of years of training by participating in and perhaps excelling in the greatest multinational sporting event of all. FlagAndMap applauds all participants and congratulates the medal winners. At the same time we will have a little fun by trying to determine which nation might be said to be performing best given a level playing field – by which we mean after adjustment is made for the differing resources they have at their disposal. This is achieved by assessing the value of medals won and adjusting that value according to national GDP. We’ll skip the details and merely note that our algorithm is designed to minimize the spread of results and maximize the number of nations that have a chance of winning.
It’s early days yet so our 2012 Olympics GDP Adjusted Performance Ranking is looking a little lean but already we can see the benefit of a more level playing field. China’s early haul of 4 golds is impressive but Italy places above them with only 2 golds by virtue of being a smaller nation with a lower overall GDP, yet they in turn are pipped by even less wealthy Kazakhstan thanks to Vinokourov’s gold in the cycling road race. We’ll be updating this table at the end of every day so check in again to see how your country is performing.