Ranking countries by Olympic medal counts favors very large-population nations, while in real Olympic practice, medals-per-capita rankings favor very small-population countries.
In this article, CRA’s Andrew Parece and Robert C. Duncan (University of Texas) explain why this occurs and propose a new, population-inclusive ranking system based on medals won, allowing countries with widely varying populations to achieve high rankings. This “population-adjusted probability ranking” ranks countries according to how much evidence they show for high capability at Olympic sports. In particular, it ranks countries according to how improbable their medal counts would be if all people in competing countries worldwide had equal propensity per capita for winning medals.
The authors explain this method and present population-adjusted probability rankings for the last three summer Olympics (London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020). If understood by sports media and the public, this method could be widely reported alongside raw medal counts, adding excitement to the Olympics.
Read the NYT opinion column: Which Country Will Win the Paris Olympics? Don’t Just Count Medals.
