Why Are We So Good At Athletics?

[sp1814]

In the 2012 London Olympics we finished third (behind USA and China), and we are currently in exactly the same place in the Rio Olympics.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/ng-interactive/2016/aug/05/rio-olympics-2016-medal-table-and-results-in-full

Population of the USA: 318 millon
Population of China: 1.3 billion
Population of 64 million.

Great, don't you think?

[anotheoldgit]

jno

/// aog, the same thing has happened in
diving ///

Can't depend on 'real papers' that link was about cycling.

[jno]

mikey, those are countries! The cities are just where the games were held.

As I said... so far NZ is top in medals-per-head (though it doesn't give more points for gold than silver and NZ's are mostly silver). No flash in the pan - they were 4th in London, behind Granada, Jamaica and Trinidad. As I recall, they've done this the same way as GB: by putting money into it. Looking back through the lists in jomifl's link, they got nothing at all in Moscow, so I believe they decided to fund sports better. The results have been dramatic for NZ, as they are now for GB.

[jno]

sorry, aog, I copied the wrong link, try again

http://newsthump.com/2016/08/09/some-bloke-copying-tom-daley-also-gets-medal/

[mikey4444]

jno....money would seem to be the answer then !

[ichkeria]

Lottery money is a huge factor.
I still think it's a shame that we don't make more effort to encourage sports like handball, which was dropped like a hot brick after one predictable failure at the last Olympics. There's no short, mappable, route to the top in sports like this, sadly, and so it gets put on the back burner. We've gone for specific targets.

If you look at the US medal tally , on the other hand, most of their golds are in swimming, so while in the end they will probably show a wider spread of success, the UK's range of achievement is impressive.

[jno]

you do have to have the athletes first, mikey, but wisely-spent money seems a good way of getting the best out of item.

[mikey4444]

I heard Lyn Davies ( 1964 long jump winner) on Broadcasting House this morning. He said that in 1964, he was a Teacher, he could only manage perhaps 10 hours training a week, compared to todays full-time British Olympians.

[-Talbot-]

New Zealand sent a team of 203 athletes and have 8 medals

Great Britain sent a team of 373 athletes and have 30 medals


Just saying .....

[jno]

I don't know what size of team might have to do with it. The question isn't about how many losers a country has but how many winners.

[-Talbot-]

Then clearly we have more winners than either Australia or New Zealand

I'm not sure what your reasons are for trying to dilute Great Britain's achievement , jno?

[-Talbot-]

China may have a population of 1.3 billion but they have only sent 403 athletes.

[Old_Geezer]

Because not all Brits are as lazy & sluggish as I.

[Old_Geezer]

The number sent may be less relevant than the size of the pool one can select the cream from.

[jno]

Talbot, have you spotted that I am answering the OP? Which points to both medals and population.

[sp1814]

jomifl's link throws a different light on the medal table.

My link focusses on the top of the table in terms of medals, but the stats (when taking into account a low number of medals with a very low population) actually puts us at 16th place.

http://www.medalspercapita.com/

The maths don't lie - if a country has a population of 892,145 (Fiji), with one medal, then mathematically, they're doing better than us (population 64 million with 30 medals.

Ho hum.

[ichkeria]

Number of athletes alone is a poor guide. Number of events competing for and number of people to choose from the population is more meaningful.
A large team might have a high number of team sport members who fail together for example. A country with a high population should in theory have a better set of 100 athletes than a country like San Marino.

[THECORBYLOON]

JNO, surely the more folk in a team, all things being equal, the more chance they have of winning a medal? The UK team is not taking part in all the sports so has not the same chances as a country which is. Having said that, the medals table is not official and appears to be based solely on the number of gold medals won so that a country with one gold and nothing else is ranked above another with five silvers and a bronze.

[trt]

## Just hear this on the news....its all down to lottery funding ! ##

I agree Mickey, and dedication.
When Mo Farrow was interviewed last night, it came out he is away from his family 6 months of the year, and runs 120 miles a week.

The Brit swimmer who broke the world record twice, says he trains 44 hours a week, that dedication.

[Old_Geezer]

When a country is so small it can achieve wonders with a single win it merely indicates the amount of noise in your comparison method. It doesn't really work with the small numbers as a sufficiently accurate reading can't be taken. You can't get fractional wins.

[ToraToraTora]

good to see the anti British using this to have a dig.