Our Cognitive Surplus

Something weird is going on with the Olympic medal tally. Being that only tiny fractions separate gold, silver and bronze winning athletes it seems to me that, over the course of an Olympic games, countries should collect roughly the same amount of all the medals. Naturally a country can get ‘lucky’ in terms of getting more gold than the other medals, or ‘unlucky’ by getting less. But a roughly equal spread should be expected. And, for the most part, that’s what you get.

Athens

If we have a look at the Medal tally from Athens we see my theory roughly playing out.

America (the highest medal scorer and hence the best sample space) is the prime example of what you should expect. 35G, 39S, 29B. The amount of gold is only 3% less than the average amount of silver and bronze. That’s exactly what should happen. If you scroll down the medal count to countries only winning a handful of medals, my system broadly remains true, but the small sample spaces make the stats less interesting.

The outliers are Germany which got a little unlucky, scoring 21% LESS gold than the average of the other medals (still pretty close to the same). And Japan and China which got lucky, scoring 65% and 48% more gold than the average of the other medals. For me, Japan and China raise an eyebrow, 50% is pretty big. Why so much more gold? (Note that Greece, the home nation, went 6/6/4 so the home ground advantage doesn’t appear huge in terms of pushing people over the line.)

Beijing

Now let’s jump to the current Beijing Medal Tally and do some similar math.

Again we see that broadly the average of bronze and silver is pretty close to the amount of Gold. Australia and America are perfect examples of what I would expect a tally to look like. Japan, who had a good year in Athens is still doing well, but not by as much. This year Russia is having shocking luck, whereas in Athens they were bang in the expected zone. Germany had a bad year in Athens, but is having good fortune in Athens. So the fortune of countries rises and falls, but not China. China is scoring almost three times as many gold as the average of bronze and silver.

What’s going on here?

At first you’d put China’s success down to home ground advantage. If the difference is only a fraction of a second, being at home might push you over the line. But Greece in Athens and Australia in Sydney scored in the expected range. If anything Australia got unlucky in Sydney.

The next best explanation is that China are simply lucky. But I’m not sure luck is a good explanation. In Sydney, China scored 28/16/15. Not quite double, but certainly note-worthy. Over a sample space of about 200 podium finishes over a 12 year period I’d expect the ‘luck’ factor to average out.

Is China cheating? I suppose that’s the conclusion I’d like to jump to. But I’m hesitant, perhaps because I’m a bit Bias towards China. Another viable alternative might be that China well outclasses it’s rivals in the sports it’s good at. Countries like America and Australia are simply ‘in the mix’ and taking their chances. Hence they get this average split. Perhaps China is simply not ‘in the mix’ in about about 15 odd events. Rather they’re significantly better. Hence they walk away with the gold consistently which messes with the overall numbers. But I think I’ll conclude that the Chinese are all wired to the eye-balls on drugs and that the Olympics are a farce – that’s more fun, right?